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THE POINT OF VIEW 
IN HISTORY 



BY 
WILLIAM E. FOSTER 



THE POINT OF YIEW 
m HISTORY 



By 

WILLIAM E. FOSTER 



Reprinted from the Proceedings of the 
American Antiquarian Society 



WOECESTEB 

1906 



Autbfw' 
27 '06 



THE poi:n^t of yiew in history. 

BY WILLIAM E. FOSTER. 

What is history? Is it, essentially, science; or is it, 
essentially, literature; or must we make a still different 
answer to the question? 

Although the problem involved in these questions is by 
no means giew, it has hardly ever been discussed with 
greater earnestness than in our own day, nor has it perhaps 
been discussed with greater frequency than during the last 
twenty-five years. During this period have appeared 
the various publications by the German historian, Lam- 
precht, relating to history, including his latest volume of 
lectures,^ which has been translated into English under 
the suggestively interrogative title: — "What is history?" 

The literature of the subject, as a whole, is most volum- 
inous;^ and the answers to this very question, direct or im- 
plied, are bewilderingly diverse. In the Eighteenth Century 
Montesquieu seemed to conceive of history as based very de- 
cidedly on physiography, or the study of the earth's surface.^ 

^Lamprecht, Karl. Moderne Geschichtswissenschaft. Freiburg im Breisgau 
H., Heyfelder. 1905. This is translated into English under the following title: 
"What is history? Five lectures on the modern science of history Translated 
from the German by E. A. Andrews." New York. The MacmiUan Co., 1905. 

^On the literature of the subject, in general, a very useful "Bibhography of the 
study and teaching of history" has been prepared by James Ingersoll Wyer, Jr., and 
published in the "Annual report" of the American Historical Association, 1899, v. 
1, p. 559-612. There should also be noted the more than one hundred citations 
included in the "Notes" appended to Lord Acton's inaugural lecture at Cambridge, 
on "The study of history," (p. 75-142), London: MacmiUan & Co., 1895; also Dr. 
William Preston Johnston's paper on "Definitions of history," in the "Annual report" 
of the American Historical Association, 1895, p. 45-53. Other enumerations of 
writers who have defined history will be found in Dr. Robert Flint's "History of the 
philosophy of history," pt. 1, (1894'), New York; C. Scribner's Sons, p. 8-12. 

See also p. v-viii of Dr. G. Stanley Hall's "Methods of teaching history," (Ed. 
1886), for brief references. 

'See Books 14-18 of "L'esprit des lois," first published at Paris in 1748. 

A recent volume of much interest, by H. B. George, discusses "The relations 
of geography and history." Oxford University Press, 1901. 



The late John W. Draper/ an American historian, 
apparently sympathized with this view, extending 
it also to physiology, or the study of the human 
body. The famous English historian, Freeman, defined 
history as "past politics," and politics as "present history."^ 
This is a view of the subject which appealed also to another 
recent English historian, Lecky,^ Two eminent econ- 
omists, writing respectively in England and America, 
(Thorold Rogers and Seligman), emphasize its connection 
with economics.^ History is definitely included under 
sociology by a very eminent English scholar, Frederic 
Harrison.^ A historian's conception of history is em- 
bodied in an incidental remark of the late Judge Chamber- 
lain, in 1887, as follows: "the record of impartial judgment 
concerning the motives and conduct of men, of parties, and 
of nations, set forth in their best light. "^ It is interesting 
also to notice the views incidentally expressed by men 
whose fields of study are somewhat remote from history. 
For instance, it is closely connected with the human will, 
by Dr. Hugo Miinsterberg,"' in one of his brilliant psy- 

'Mr. Draper's views are embodied not only in his "History of the American 
Civil War," (New York, Harper & Bros., 1867-70, 3 v.), but in his "History of the 
intellectual development of Europe, " (New York: Harper & Bros, 1861, 2 v.) 

-Freeman, Edward Augustus. Lectures to American audiences, (Pub. 1882). 
p. 207. Compare also his "Methods of historical study," (1886), p. 44. This view 
was also held by Herbert B. Adams. See the Johns Hopkins University studies in 
historical and poUtical science, v. 1, p. 12. 

^Lecky, WiUiam Edward Hartpole. Pohtical (The) value of history. New York: 
D. Appleton & Co. 1893. [Delivered as an inaugural address at Birmingham, 1892.] 

^Rogers, James Edward Thorold. Economic (The) interpretation of history. 
New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1888. 

Seligman, Edward R. A. Economic (The ) interpretation of history. New 
York: Macmillan Co., 1902. 

^"Hi.story is only one department of sociology, just as natural history is the 
descriptive part of biology." At p. 138 of Mr. Harrison's volume, "The mean, 
ing of history and other historical pieces, " London: MacmiUan & Co. 1900. 

""Papers" of the American Historical Association, v. 3, (1888), p. 53. Reprinted 
in the volume "John Adams," etc., by MeUen Chamberlain, Boston; Houghton, 
Mifflin & Co., 1898, p. 139. 

Another definition of history is given by our associate, Mr. James Phinney 
Baxter, as follows: "The orderly expression of great forces whose continuity of 
action gives it unity." ("Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society," Oct. 
21, 1899, new series, v. 13, p. 142.) 

'"This whole mighty system of wiU-reference is what we call himaan history." 
Hugo Miinsterberg's "The eternal life," Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., 1905, p. 33, 



chological studies; while, in some recent Lowell Institute 
lectures on literature, by George Edward Woodberry/ it 
is connected with "race-power." Nor should it be forgotten 
that there are those who regard history as an art. But 
without further enumerating these very diverse views, 
we may notice that there are few among them which come 
with so much surprise to a reader who is without special 
training in history, as that of Lamprecht, already cited 
above. This eminent German historian, after a careful 
survey of the entire field, declares deliberately: "History 
in itself is nothing but applied psychology." Page 29. 
("Geschichte ist an sich nichts als angewandte 
Psychologic." Page 16.) It is small wonder that 
one of the reviewers of Lamprecht, after devoting 
three pages to a consideration of the book, closes 
by asking: — "What is history?" or, rather, "Where is 
history ?"2 

And yet, diverse as are these points of view, much the 
greater part of the discussion which has been carried on, 
in English, at least, has been a dispute as to whether history 
ought to be written from the "literary" point of view or 
from the "scientific" point of view; and on this question 
the divergence of opinion is sharp indeed. On the one hand, 
it is argued, sometimes seriously, and sometimes in a very 
charmingly humorous vein,^ that the literary point of 
view is the only point of view, and that the dull facts of 
history must be dressed up. "A distinguished author," 
says Mr. William C. Todd, in a recent article,^ once said 
to the writer that "it was not right to turn a man out into 

'"History is so much of past experience as abides in race-memory; and underlies 
race-literature in the same way that a poet's own experience underlies his expres- 
sion of life." In "The torch — eight lectures on race power in literature," New 
York: McClure. Phillips, & Co., 1905, p. 38. 

^Dr. Asa Currier Tilton, in the American Historical Review, Oct., 1905, v. 11, 
p. 121. 

^For an admirable discussion of the subject with a humorous appreciation and 
lightness of touch almost worthy of Charles Lamb, see "The gentle reader." by 
Samuel M. Crothers, Boston: Houghton, MifHin, & Co., 1903, particularly, his chapter 
entitled "That history should be readable." 

*New England Historical and Genealogical Register, April, 1890, v. 44, p. 172. 



V^ 



6 

the world naked — he should be dressed up." Apparently 
some history is written on precisely this principle. 

At the other extreme will be found the eminent English 
scholar, Professor John Bagnall Bury, who, in his recent 
inaugural address, took occasion to remark severely : "It 
has not yet become superfluous to insist that history is a 
science, no less and no more."^ "When this," he adds, 
"has been fully taken to heart, though there may be many 
schools of political philosophy, there will no longer be 
divers schools of history."^ It is quite evident that the 
adherents of these two extremes can hardly hope to find 
themselves assenting to each other's declarations. So 
irreconcilable, indeed, are they that one is almost forced 
to inquire whether some different point of view is not 
possible, — a tertium quid, so to speak. 

NEED OF DEFINITION. 

We know that some difficulties result from inadequate 
definition. If, as has already been stated, history is some- 
times defined as literature and sometimes as science, let 
us define, if possible, these terms themselves. It is, in 
in some sense, a misfortune that both of these words have 
been laid hold of, in our complex "mother tongue," to 
express widely varying concepts. As a consequence, the 
attempt to make either one of them fit some definitely 
specified set of ideas, rather than another, may sometimes 
leave the impression of using terms loosely. Still, the 
following definitions are submitted as perhaps covering 
the requirements. 

Literature, on the one hand, may be regarded as something 
vital and noteworthy, not only in its content, (which may 
be either a thought, or a principle, as well as an event), 
but also in its verbal form. But literature, in order to 



^At p. 7 of his "Inaugural lecture," as Regius Professor of Modem History at 
the University of Cambridge, Jan, 26, 1903, Cambridge: University Press, 1903. 

^Ibid. It is not strange that so extreme, not to say dogmatic a deliverance, 
has called forth spirited protests. 



possess vitality, must deal with actual, living realities, — 
with life in some shape, and most commonly with the 
life of man. Moreover, in attaining the verbal form which 
is required, it will natiu-ally possess "style." By this is 
not necessarily meant a florid or an obtrusive style. In 
other words, it does not call for "purple patches." 

Science, on the other hand, may be regarded as dealing 
with certain definite data, by means of systematically 
reasoned processes, whether deductive or inductive, and 
as making use of rigid methods of verification, in order to 
exclude all data which are untrustworthy. It follows 
from this, that in the work of the scientific historian there 
is no place for "guess-work" on the one hand, nor for 
"rhapsodies" on the other. It does not follow from this, 
however, that "the scientific use of the imagination" is 
not allowable. It is not merely allowable but even indis- 
pensable, provided that it is accompanied by verification, 
and it is a necessary part of historical science, quite as fully 
as of physical science, where Mr. Tyndall^ so convincingly 
advocated it. 

If now we inquire as to the materials, the methods, 
and the aims, of the historian, on the basis of the definitions 
just given, we may perhaps put the case as follows. 

The "scientific historian," so-called, in the use of the 
materials of his history, will be liberal in the extreme, in 
extending the scope of the inquiry so as to include not 
only narratives of wars, of peace, of government, and of 
the minuter features of every-day life, but he will also be 
rigid in the extreme in rejecting certain definite data 
which appear not to have the requisite body of proof in 
their favor. "Facts", — and nothing else,— will be insisted 
on, as the appropriate materials for history.^ 

The "literary historian," on the other hand, will be likely 
to claim the right to deal not only with facts, but with ideas, 

^"Fragments of science," (Am. ed.), New York: D. Appleton & Co.. 1883, p. 125. 
*To quote from Ranke: — "Ich will nur sagen wie es eigentlich gewesen iet." 
Cited by Bury, at p. 18 of his "Inaugural lecture," 1903. 



thoughts, fancies, and impressions, maintaining that under 
some conditions he will find in such a field as this the closest 
approach to a truthful reproduction of his subject. 

The scientific historian will insist on submitting all of 
his data, and all of his processes, to verification, unhesi- 
tatingly casting away whatever does not endure this test. 
So far as the formal organization of his material is con- 
cerned, he will at least aim to present a logical chain of 
reasoning, even if he does not go so far as to insist on reduc- 
ing the successive steps in the process to mathematical 
formulae. 

The literary historian, on the other hand, is inclined to 
attach less importance to formal processes. While he 
would hesitate to go to the extreme of non-logical methods, 
he will usually prefer that the "skeleton" of reasoned 
processes should lie below the surface, rather than on the 
surface. 

The scientific historian urges the necessity of approach- 
ing the treatment of any historical incident absolutely free 
from pre-possession, from pre-judgment, or prejudice, or 
from pre-conceptions of any kind. He maintains also that 
the treatment must be absolutely "colorless,"^ so far as 
concerns the presence, in his own mind, of sympathy, of 
advocacy, of partisanship, of emotion, or of human feeUng 
generally. In other words, the temper and the treatment, 
instead of being subjective, must be purely objective. 

The literary historian, on the other hand, while admitting 
that a historian who should, as a matter of fact, be absolutely 
divested of all human feeling, in approaching a historical 
subject, would be an interesting phenomenon, maintains 
that, under existing conditions, this is probably an im- 
possibility. He therefore maintains that a recognition of 
this fact is safer, in the end, than the assumption of an 
unrealizable ideal. He maintains also, that in going to 



'See the consideration elsewhere in this paper, (p. 39), of this quahty, (that of 
being colorless \ as advocated by Ranke. 



the extreme of "objective" treatment, one runs the risk 
of presenting perhaps as distorted a picture, as in going to 
the extreme of subjective treatment. 

The scientific historian conceives of motive only to put 
it under the ban. He maintains that the only defensible 
position is that of "history for the sake of history," rather 
than that of history as a means to an end, however laudable. 
If the historian may be conceived of as holding opinions, 
they must be those only which he finds that he can, at the 
close of his prolonged study of the problem, deduce from 
the data which have been brought forward. In entering 
on the study of the problem, however, the shell of no tor- 
toise should be barer of hair than his own mind should be 
bare of opinions, on either side. It should, in fact, be an 
absolute blank.' He furthermore maintains that, whether 
or not a history, when complete, is interesting to the reader 
or not, is no concern of his. His business is with the facts 
alone. He maintains that to recognize any such motive 
as that of presenting the facts in an attractive form^ is 
not only aside from his real province, but is likely 
to prove a most dangerous and misleading factor in 
the treatment of the subject. His duty is to get 
the facts included as a part of the permanent record 
of history, and then trust to time to bring about their 
general acceptance, in the fight of an extended examination 
of the subject. 

The literary historian, on the other hand, while admitting 
the danger attaching to pre-conceived ideas, maintains 
that it is sometimes the obvious duty of a man who has 
already made up his mind in regard to some occurrence, 
to set down an orderly narrative of the events connected 
with it. He also maintains that the writer who fails to 
present his facts in such verbal form as to carry conviction 
to his readers falls short of his duty, whether in history, 
in science, or in literature. 

'"Dressed up" — to quote from the language already cited above, (p. 5). 



10 

The scientific historian is satisfied to toil for months 
without reaching definite results. He maintains that one 
of the greatest perils in historical narrative is the confound- 
ing of "absolute proof" with what is only "a high degree 
of probability." 

The literary historian, on the other hand, holds that in 
his general summing up it is perfectly legitimate to cite 
those data which are only "probable",' along with those 
which are certain, — provided always that this distinction 
is made perfectly clear to the reader. 

Along some such lines of distinction as those above 
indicated would run the division between the varying 
points of view of the two schools of historians. And yet, 
as every student of history knows, a comparative study 
of individual historians does not reveal a cleavage so simple 
and so unvarying as that above indicated, but rather an 
inextricably mixed condition of things. One of the com- 
plications is frequently to be noted when the same writer 
has published both a work of historical narrative proper, 
and an extended discussion of the ideal "point of view" in 

^An effective protest can apparently be made against this position, (the citing 
of "probable evidence,") even by those writers who admit in other ways the force 
of the "literary" point of view, on the ground that it fails to distinguish between 
the conditions existing in the case of human conduct and those which govern in the 
framing of a historical narrative. 

Bishop Butler, (in his "Analogy of religion, natural and revealed, to the 
constitution and course of nature," first published in 1736), has convincingly shown 
that "probable evidence," as distinguished from "demonstrative" evidence, must 
frequently be accepted in lieu of anything else, in deciding on the steps to be taken, 
in the practical affairs of life. Long after him, Mr. Gladstone, in his paper on "The 
law of probable evidence and its relation to conduct, " (published under the title of 
"Probability as the guide of conduct," in the Nineteenth Century, May, 1879, v. 
5, p. 908-34, and afterwards reprinted in his "Gleanings of past years, " Am. ed., 
v. 7, p. 153-99), re-enforced the same view, and included some additional argu- 
ments in favor of it. Both of these writers succeed in convincing the candid 
reader that "probability is the very guide of hfe. " (Gladstone, p. 84.) 

But the essential difference between the case of the man who uses "probable 
evidence, " in shaping his course of action, and one who uses it in shaping a historical 
narrative is, that the former has no option, while the latter has. In other words, 
a historian is at perfect liberty not to act on the basis of insufficient evidence, and 
simply omits all reference to it; and the careful historian will follow this course. The 
instructive instance cited from Mr. Samuel Rawson Gardiner's experience, (at page 
391, below), in which he decided, after long-continued examination of certain papers, 
that they were "unavailable for historical purposes," (English Historical Re\'iew, 
V. 1, p. 520), is worthy of imitation by all other historians. 



11 

writing history. Under these circumstances, it is by no 
means an unheard of occurrence when such a writer is 
found strongly emphasizing the need of non-partisan 
treatment in historical composition, while, at the same 
time, his own historical work reveals a distinctly partisan 
point of view. And this helps to show us the futility of 
any very rigid system of applying the labels, "literary" 
and "scientific." 

It is true that time, place, and condition need to be taken 
into account, in passing judgment on a historian, particu- 
larly in regard to what may be considered the conditions 
inherently favorable for accuracy. While history, like 
natural science, has been essayed by both ancient and 
modern writers, at successive stages of the world's develop- 
ment, one can hardly judge Herodotus, writing in the fifth 
century before Christ, by exactly the same canons as in 
the case of James Anthony Froude, writing in the nine- 
teenth century after Christ, 

Moreover, the historian's own relation to the event needs 
to be taken into account. Perhaps the bearing of this 
principle on the question at issue may best be seen from its 
operation in the case of biography, which is, after all, a 
form of history. Imagine, for instance, that a poet and 
artist such as the late William Morris has died, and that a 
biography of him is needed. In course of time, a "Life" 
of William Morris, in two volumes, by John W. Mackail,^ 
makes its appearance. Wliat are the circumstances under 
which this work has been prepared? This is a question 
which is very satisfactorily answered, from Mr. Mackail's 
"Preface" where we read as follows: "When the task 
of writing the life of Morris was placed in my hands, his 
family and representatives gave me unreserved access 
to all the materials in their possession. To them, 
and more especially to his executors, Mr. F. S. ElUs 

^Mackail, John William, Life of WiUiam Morris. London: Longmans, Greet* 
& Co.. 2 V. 1899. Mr. Mackail was appointed Professor of Poetry at Oxford, Feb- 
9, 1906. 



12 

and Mr. S. C. Cockrell, I owe my best thanks for their 
friendly help."^ 

So far as it goes, this represents ideally favorable con- 
ditions, as regards the materials of the work, but this is not 
all. We know, from other som-ces, that the author of 
this biography is a scholarly writer, a careful student, one 
who is accustomed to weigh historical evidence, a man of 
sane and well-balanced judgment, a man who is not swayed 
by strong prejudices in either direction, but one who is 
prepared to judge sympathetically the various episodes of 
Morris's career. In fact, after an exhaustive examination 
of the hundreds of biographies of the Englishmen of Morris's 
time, we might perhaps safely place Mackail's Life of Morris 
almost at the head of the list, as representing the maximum 
of favorable conditions, so far as accuracy is concerned. 
From this as a maximum, we may find the lives of 
various other Englishmen ranging, by almost imper- 
ceptible gradations, down to the minimum of favorable 
conditions. 

A distinctly less favorable condition is found when the 
biographer, although belonging to the same century with 
the subject of the biography, is of a different nationality, 
and when he speaks a different language. Thereby will 
result, even if not always perceptible to the biographer, a 
very decided veil of obscurity, in not a few instances, 
between the writer and his facts. 

But suppose that this veil of obscurity is one of time, 
rather than of place, and that the biography of one of 
the main actors in the events of the eighteenth century 
is to be written by a WTiter living in the Twentieth Century. 
A very decided handicap is ine^'itably occasioned by this 
separation in time, owing to the gradual disappearance of 
the data needed by the biographer. 

What says Ulysses, in Shakespeare's "Troilus and 
Cressida"? 



^Mackail's Life of William Morris, v. 1, p. vii. 



13 

"Time hath, my lord, a wallet at his back, 
Wherein he puts alms for oblivion."^ 

In few things is this tribute to oblivion so palpably in 
evidence as in the details which one needs in constructing a 
biography, and which, little by little, disappear from the 
knowledge of living men. Almost every succeeding year, 
in such a case, witnesses the dropping into this ever hungry 
"wallet," of some dearly prized item of information. The 
papers of the subject of the biography are in the posses- 
sion, we will suppose, of some one of his descendants, who 
decides to remove to another state, and who, being unable 
to add this to the other burdens of removal, sells the whole 
to the junk-dealer. Or the papers may be consigned to 
the furnace by some servant with a genius for cleaning up, 
— such a one as the ingenuous maid who could not read and 
who, when taxed with having thrown away certain papers, 
frankly confessed that she had done so, but, — she trium- 
phantly explained, "I kept all the clean papers. Them as 
I thro wed away had ink-marks all over them." 

Lastly, there is a decided difference of conditions under 
which the task of the biographer or historian is undertaken, 
so far as the writer's temperament or mood are concerned. 
Instead of being entered on in a calm and dispassionate 
mood, it is taken up, rather, as a polemical movement, by 
some writer warped by prejudice, wholly out of sympathy 
with the subject of his biography, and desiring only to 
"tread him under," so to speak. A case in point is the 
volume entitled "The character of Thomas Jefferson, as 
exliibited in his own writings," by Theodore Dwight, 
published in Boston, by Weeks, Jordan & Co., in 1839. 
Or, on the other hand, the "prejudice," or pre-judgment, 
embodied in the book is a blind and unreasoning feeling 
in favor of the hero of the book, instead of against him. 
Nevertheless, it is prejudice, in the one case as in the 
other, and serves to nullify the value of the work. 

"^"Troilus and Cressida," act 3, scene 3, lines 145-46. 



14 

Besides these differences in condition, based upon personal 
and individual considerations, there may be differences 
which vary with successive decades, or even centuries. 
It would be interesting to know whether the conditions 
are more favorable at present, for the production of the 
ideal history, than they were in former times, as regards 
adequate materials, accuracy, freedom from prejudice, etc. 

MATERIALS FOR THE HISTORIAN. 

If the question be raised as to materials, it seems plain 
that, in mere mass, they are certainly greater, both as a 
whole and on any given subject, than one hundred years 
ago. One need not go from home to find an illustration, 
not only of mass, but of extreme value, in the case of the 
John Carter Brown Library, with its thousands of titles of 
Americana, merely, — all of them antedating the year 1800. 
The invention of printing has had its bearing on the field of 
historical literature, as elsewhere, swelling the mass in an 
almost cumulative manner. Scarcely less influential in 
this direction has been the tendency towards the cheapen- 
ing of printing processes. One hundred years ago, a man 
who had something to say on a historical subject might 
well hesitate before incurring the expense of committing 
it to print. Now, if the bulk of our historical literature 
be any guide, he hesitates no longer, — unfortunately for 
the public, — or in so few instances that they may be re- 
garded as negligible. 

Moreover, besides the individual and fragmentary contri- 
butions to the subject, there has now for a long time been a 
systematic organization of historical pubUcation. Scat- 
tered throughout this country, — and also throughout the 
European countries, — are hundreds of "historical societies." 
nearly all of which are started on a career of pubUshing, 
with at least one annual volume to their credit. From a 
considerable number of universities and colleges also, 
there is now issuing a steady stream of "pubUcations" or 
"contributions," devoted to history. 



16 

There has been a noteworthy increase, during the past 
fifty years, in the printed volumes of records, issued by 
the various record commissions, or "rolls commissions," 
or document commissions, of this and other countries, 
and including those of state or provincial, and municipal 
governments, as well as of national governments. The 
present condition of the originals of these records is even 
more gratifying. Within the period referred to, the art of 
fire-proof construction has made important advances, so 
that these manuscript records are everywhere coming to be 
housed in safe and durable quarters, where they can be 
readily consulted. To feel that we have a reasonable 
assurance of the indefinite preservation of these records is 
one of the most substantial gains of the last half-century. 

It is of course true that, the greater the mass of materials, 
the greater is the need of sifting it, to discover that which 
is really serviceable. Year by year, the processes of 
minuting, indexing, and cataloguing these stores of docu- 
ments have made it possible to refer to some given document 
with less loss of time than ever before; and yet there is an 
enormous mass which these indexing processes have not 
yet touched. 

While the mass of historical materials has thus been in- 
creasing, there has everywhere been an unparalleled activity 
in developing and improving methods of historical study. 
An extraordinary amount of attention has been bestowed 
not only on the best methods of teaching history to child- 
dren in the secondary schools, but to those who are study- 
ing these subjects in colleges and universities, especially 
when they are planning to devote the subsequent years of 
their life to the teaching or writing of history. Methods 
like these have long been very vigorously prosecuted on 
the other side of the water, — and especially in Germany. 
It was some time, however, before this country felt the 
full force of this noteworthy development. There are few 
more instructive volumes, as throwing light on this very 



16 

development, than the one entitled "Methods of teaching 
history," edited by our associate. President G. Stanley 
Hall, with papers by a number of separate writers. This 
work has passed through two editions, namely, that of 
1884, and that of 1886.^ A later volume, of much interest 
and significance, is the one entitled "Essays on the teach- 
ing of history", 2 written by nine English teachers of 
history, — for the most part at Oxford and Cambridge, — 
including, among others, so eminent names as those of 
Maitland, Poole, Cunningham, and Ashley. This work, 
projected by the late Lord Acton, was published in 1901, 
after his death. It is easy to see that, during the period 
referred to, there has been gradually incorporated into 
the every-day routine of the colleges and universities, 
not only the "seminary" method, so-called, but also 
the "laboratory" point of view, as it may well be 
called. This is indeed at the present time the normal and 
obvious view of historical study, instead of being the 
exceptional view. It is widely, or rather, universally, 
recognized that the historian's labor, in the gathering of 
data, must be comprehensive, long, patient, and well- 
directed. These data must then be carefully grouped and 
classified, since an imdigested mass of unrelated facts is an 
offence to any true historian. And, fina,lly, these data 
must be subjected to rigid analyses and tests, before being 
accepted; and this is taken to be quite as much a matter 
of course as if it were an instance of substances for analysis 
in a chemical laboratory. 

Within recent years also, those who have occupied 
important chairs of history, both in this country and in 
Great Britain, have taken occasion to publish their views, 
for the enlightenment not merely of their own pupils, but 



^"Methods of teaching history," by Andrew D. White, and others. Vol. 1 of 
the "Pedagogical library," edited by G. Stanley Hall. 2d ed., Boston: D. C. Heath 
& Co., 1SS6. 

-"Essays on the teaching of history," edited by W. A. J. Archbold, Cambridge, 
at the University Press, 1901. 



17 

of the intelligent public, at large. The list of names of 
the men who have held the position of Regius Professor 
of Modern History, at Oxford and Cambridge respectively, 
since 1850, is a most striking one,^ and there are few 
among them who have not, in one way or another, put on 
record their ideas of the way in which history ought to be 
written.^ The list of published 'Inaugural addresses" 
which have marked the occupancy of these two chairs, at 
Oxford and at Cambridge is a noteworthy one, and is, 
approximately,^ as follows: 

At Oxford. 

1. Vaughan, Henry Halford. Two general lectures on modern 
history, delivered on inauguration. Oxford: J. H. and J. Parker. 1849. 

2. Smith, Goldwin. Inaugural lecture, in 1859. Printed at p. 5-44 
of his volume, "Lectures on the study of history ", (Am. ed.). New York: 
Harper & Bros., 1875. [Published in London by J. H. & J. Parker, 1861.] 

3. Stiihbs, William, [afterwards Bishop of Oxford.] Inaugural 
address, Feb. 7, 1867, printed at p. 1-25 of his volume, "Seventeen 
lectures on the study of medieval and modern history and kindred sub- 
jects", Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1886. 

4. Freeman, Edward Augustus. Office (The) of the historical 
professor. Inaugural lecture delivered Oct. 15, 1884. London: Mac- 

^Below is given a table showing the successive occupants of both the Oxford 
and Cambridge chairs for the past fifty-six years: 

The following persons have held the position of Regius Professor of Modern 
History at Oxford since 1850: — 

1. Henry Halford Vaughan. Appointed in 1848 Continued till 1858. 

2. Goldwin Smith. Appointed in 1859. Continued till 1866. 

3. William Stubbs, afterwards Bishop of Oxford. Appointed in 1866. Con- 

tinued tiU 1884. 

4. Edward Augustus Freeman. Appointed in 1884. Continued till 1892. 

5. James Anthony Froude. Appointed in 1892. Continued till 1894. 

6. Frederick York-Powell. Appointed in 1894. Continued till 1904. 

7. Charles Harding Firth. Appointed in 1904. Continued to the present time. 
The following persons have held the position of Regius Professor of Modern 

History at Cambridge since 1850: — 

1. Sir James Stephen. Appointed in 1849. Continued till 1860. 

2. Charles Kingsley. Appointed in 1860. Continued till 1869. 

3. Sir John Robert Seeley. Appointed in 1869. Continued till 1895. 

4. Lord Acton. Appointed in 1895. Continued till 1902. 

5. John Bagnall Bury. Appointed in 1902. Continued to the present time. 
^The name of Samuel Rawson Gardiner narrowly escaped being in this list. 

The position was offered to him in 1894. but was dechned. 

*That here are omissions is very probable, even with utmost care to include 
all. The inaugural address of Mr. Froude, at Oxford is noticeable by its absence. 
The term of office of Dr. Thomas Arnold, at Oxford, antedated the period referred to 
(1841-42). His "Inaugural lecture," (1841), is at p. 25-90 of his "Introductory 
lectures," (Am. ed.) New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1845. 



18 

millan & Co., 1884. [Also printed at p. 1-40 of his volume, "The 
methods of historical study," London: Macmillan & Co., 1886.] 

5. Firth, Charles Harding. Plea (A) for the historical teaching 
of history. Inaugural lecture delivered on Nov. 9, 1904. Oxford: 
Clarendon Press, 1905. 

At Cambridge. 

1. Kingsley, Charles. Inaugural lecture, 1860. Chapter 1, (p. ix- 
Ivi), of his volume. The Roman and the Teuton — a series of lectures 
before the University of Cambridge. Cambridge: University Press, 1864. 

2. Seeley, Sir John Robert. Inaugural lecture, 1869. The teach- 
ing of politics. Printed at p. 306-35 of his volume, "Roman imperial- 
ism and other lectures and essays", Boston: Roberts Bros. 1871. [Pub- 
lished in London by Macmillan & Co., 1870.] 

3. Acton, Richard Maximilian Dalberg-, Baron Acton. Lecture (A) 
on the study of history, delivered at Cambridge, June 11, 1895. Lon- 
don: Macmillan & Co., 1895. 

4. Bury, John Bagnall. Inaugural lecture delivered in the Divinity 
School, Cambridge, on January 26, 1903, Cambridge: University 
Press, 1903.' 

In this country a scarcely less noteworthy series of 
expositions of historical method is to be found in the 
"President's addresses", delivered in successive years, before 
the American Historical Association. These addresses, the 
most of which have been printed in full in the American 
Historical Review, or in the "Annual report" of the Associa- 
tion, have been delivered by such men as Andrew D. White, 
George Bancroft, and others. 

These addresses may be found in print, as follows: 

Address of Andrew Dickson White, as President of the American 
Historical Association, Sept. 9, 1884, "On studies in general history 
and the history of civilization", in "Papers" of the American Historical 
Association, vol. 1, p. 49-72. 

'A recent address, of much interest, on the teaching of history is that of Professor 
Charles Oman, Chichele Professor of History at Oxford, delivered Feb. 7, 1906, and 
published during the present year, by the Clarendon Press, Oxford. The recom- 
mendations of both Firth and Oman are examined in a very incisive review, in the 
Nation, May 10, 1906, v. 82, p. 388-89. 

There are other notable addresses which might be cited in this connection, as, 
for instance, John Stuart Mill's Inaugural address as Rector of the University of 
St. Andrew's, Feb. 1, 1867, printed at p. 332-407 of v. 4 of the American reprint 
of his "Dissertations and discussions," New York: H. Holt & Co., 1874; and W. E. 
H. Lecky's "Presidential address," on "The political value of history," before the 
Birmingham and Midland Institute, Oct. 10, 1892, reprinted in this country by 
D Appleton & Co., New York, 1893, (57 pages). 



19 

That of Andrew Dickson White, Sept. 8, 1885, on "The influence of 
American ideas upon the French Revolution", (read only by abstract 
and so printed), in "Papers", vol. 1, p. 429-33. 

That of George Bancroft, April 27, 1886, on "Self-government", 
in "Papers", vol. 2, p. 7-13. 

That of Justin Winsor, May 21, 1887, on "Manuscript sources of 
American history; — the conspicuous collections extant", in "Papers", 
vol. 3, p. 9-27. 

That of William Frederick Poole, Dec. 26, 1888, on "The early North- 
west", in "Papers", vol. 3, p. 277-300. 

That of Charles Kendall Adams, Dec. 28, 1889, on "Recent historical 
work in the colleges and universities of Europe and America", in 
"Annual report" of the American Historical Association, 1889, p. 
19-42. 

That of John Jay, Dec. 29, 1890, on "The demand for education in 
American history," in "Annual report", 1890, p. 15-36. 

That of William Wirt Henry, Dec. 29, 1891, on "The causes which 
produced the Virginia of the Revolutionary period", in "Annual report" 
1891, p. 15-29. 

That of James Burrill Angell, July 11, 1893, on "The inadequate 
recognition of diplomatists by historians", in "Annual report", 1893, 
p. 13-24. 

That of Henry Adams, (read in his absence), Dec. 26, 1894, on "The 
tendency of history", in "Annual report", 1894, p. 17-23. 

That of George Frisbie Hoar, Dec. 27, 1895, on "Popular discontent 

with representative government", in "Annual report", 1895, p. 21-43. 

That of Richard Salter Storrs, Dec. 29, 1896, on "Contributions 

to our national development by plain men", in "Annual report", 1896, 

vol. 1, p. 37-63. 

That of James Schouler, Dec. 28, 1897, on "A new federal conven- 
tion", in "Annual report", 1897, p. 21-34. 

That of George Park Fisher, Dec. 28, 1898, on "The function of the 
historian as a judge of historic persons", in "Annual report", 1898, p. 
13-33. [Also issued separately, as a pamphlet.] 

That of James Ford Rhodes, Dec. 28, 1899, on "History", in "Annual 
report", 1899, p. 45-63. [Also printed in the Atlantic Monthly, vol. 
85, p. 158-69.] 

That of Edward Eggleston, (read in his absence), Dec. 27, 1900, on 
"The new history", in "Annual report", 1900, p. 35-47. 

That of Charles Francis Adams,' Dec. 27, 1901, on "An undeveloped 
function", in "Annual report", 1901, vol. 1, p, 49-93. [Also in 
American Historical Review, vol. 7, p. 203-32.] 



"^Very suggestive comment on historical methods is also to be found'in Mr. Adams's 
address on "The sifted grain and the grain sifters. " deUvered at Madison, Wis., Oct. 
19, 1900. American Historical Review. Jan., 1901. v. 6, p. 197-234. See also Mr. 
James F. Rhodes's paper. "Concerning the writing of history," in the "Annual 
report" of the American Historical Association, 1900, v. 1, p. 48-65. 



20 

That of Alfred Thayer Mahan, Dec. 26, 1902, on "Subordination in 
historical treatment", in "Annual report", 1902, p. 49-63. [Also in 
Atlantic Monthly, vol. 91, p. 289-98, with title, "The writing of 
history."] 

That of Henry Charles Lea, Dec. 29, 1903, on "Ethical values in 
history", in "Annual report", 1903, p. 55-69. 

That of Goldwin Smith, Dec. 28, 1904, on "The treatment of history", 
in "Annual report", 1904, p. 65-78. [Also in American Historical 
Review, vol. 10, p. 511-20.] 

That of John Bach McMaster, Dec. 26, 1905, on "Old standards of 
public morals", in American Historical Review, (April, 1906), vol. 11, 
p. 515-28. 

It can hardly be said then that there is any dearth of 
exact and careful instruction, on the one hand, or of thought- 
ful and suggestive discussion, on the other hand, on 
this subject of historical method and point of view. Why 
then have we not, at the present time, at least an approxi- 
mation to absolute perfection, in the historical writing of 
our day? That we have not, is too obvious to need extended 
proof, further than a glance through the critical reviews 
of the current historical publications, or, better still, 
through the books themselves. Chiefly, it may be answe-'ed 
does this result from the limitations of human nature. 
Given, — a young man who has before him a collection of 
historical materials of the widest range; who has been 
carefully instructed by an enlightened and skilful teacher 
of history; who has served an extended apprenticeship 
in the actual "laboratory work" in history at the university; 
and who, finally, is deeply interested in the study. Have 
we any absolute assurance that he will not, after he goes 
out into the world, and begins his life-work, as a writer of 
history, put forth some unworthy piece of work? Un- 
happily, none. Two drawbacks to be most carefully 
guarded against, (as persistently reinvading), are constitu- 
tional inaccuracy and traditional prejudice. 

A TERTIUM QUID. 

It has already been suggested, above, that there may 
possibly be a "tertium quid", — some point of view which 



21 

avoids the extreme of the "literary" and "scientific" 
advocates, respectively. 

This, in short, is the view of the case which has evidently 
appealed most strongly to Mr. Firth, the English historian, 
in his recent very suggestive address on historical method.^ 
The author is the present Regius Professor of Modern 
History at Oxford,^ and the adddress cited was delivered 
as his inaugural lecture, November 9, 1904, under the 
title of "A plea for the historical teaching of history." 
The language of the title, by the way, is avowedly bor- 
rowed^ from one of the letters of his distinguished pre- 
decessor in the same chair. Dr. William Stubbs, Bishop 
of Oxford."* 

Men "give opposite answers," says Mr. Firth, "accord- 
ing to their conception of the methods and the objects of 
the historian. One tells us that history is a science, noth- 
ing more and nothing less," (Professor J. B. Bury, p. 7), 
"another that it is an art,^ and that one only succeeds in it 
by imagination. To me truth seems to lie between these 
two extremes. History is neither, but it partakes of the 
nature of both."« 

Acting on the above suggestion, we shall first interrogate 
the literary conception of history. We shall note down in 
what ways this is favorable, and in what ways unfavorable, 
to the historical treatment which is required. We shall 



^Firth, Charles Henry. "Plea (A) for the historical teaching of history." Lon- 
don. 1904. 

^See chronological lists of "Regius Professors of Modern History," above, (p. 
17, foot-note 1.) 

^Firths Plea, p. 32. 

*At p. 264 of W. H. Mutton's "Letters of Wilham Stubbs, Bishop of Oxford." 
London: Constable. 1904. 

°Mr. Firth in using this language plainly conceives of "art" as the antipodes 
of "science," in the di.?pute which is under consideration. Other writers, in treat- 
ing of the antipodes of science regard it as "literature." In either case the contrast 
is a sufficiently sharp one; and indeed hterature itself may not inappropriately be 
conceived of as a form of art. It surely partakes of the characteristics of art, in 
its capacity for effective condensation. "M. Angelo," remarks Dr. C. A. L. Richards, 
"defined sculpture as 'the Art that works by force of taking away.' The art of 
literary style works in a similar fashion," [The Dial, Chicago, March 1, 1893, v. 
14, p. 140] 

^Firth's "Plea," p. 8. 



22 

next interrogate the scientific conception of history. Under 
this, Ukewise, we shall note down in what ways this point 
of view is favorable to our design, and in what ways un- 
favorable. We shall then briefly suggest what is possible 
in the way of utilizing the best of each. 

This comparison might almost be characterized as one 
between conditions involving the taking of a broad view 
and conditions involving a deep or profound view. It is 
to be regretted that these should ever be regarded as 
incompatible with each other, but it may be said that each 
of the two has an "atmosphere," so to speak, in which 
certain tendencies are natural and easy, not merely to 
the favorable but to the unfavorable conditions which 
belong with it. In other words, each of these two points 
of view "has the defects of its qualities." 

gt* THE LITERARY POINT OF VIEW. 

! On the one hand, literature, as has already been indi- 
cated above, deals with something vital in thought and 
also with the verbal form in which the thought is presented. 

It would be easy to misconceive of the literary point of 
view as applied to historical treatment, as being the dis- 
tinctively "easy" method. Few things could be further 
from the truth. So long as it is difficult to attain a true 
perspective and a right proportion in art, so long as it is 
difficult to use the imagination freely and yet not indis- 
criminately, so long will the ideally proper utilization of 
literary principles in historical writing be a difficult attain- 
ment. 

Even the very phraseology, (the words "style" and 
"literary principles"), may be the subjects of misappre- 
hension, for few things, unfortunately, are more common 
than the confounding of "style" with "fine writing," 
technically so called. When we find ourselves compelled 
to admire the telling and effective formi in which a passage 
has been cast, in the histories of the English historian. 
Green, or the American historian, Parkman, this favorable 



23 

impression is due to no "purple patches,"— no extraneous 
matter piled on,— no superfluous adjectives. On the 
contrary, it is the absence of these, and the spontaneous 
but effective telling of the story with no waste of words, 
which command equally our attention, our interest, and 
our admiration. When, moreover, we find writers Uke 
Professor H. Morse Stephens^ or Professor Frederick York- 
Powell, emphatically tabooing "style" in historical com- 
position, one cannot help thinking that it is the "over- 
loaded style" which they have in mind, and not style, 
per se, for seldom will one find so admirable instances of 
effective style as in some of their own pages. Witness the 
following, from Professor York-Powell:— 

"Whether we like it or not, history has got to be scientifically studied, 
and it is not a question of style but of accuracy, of fulness of observa- 
tion and correctness of reasoning, that is before the student. Huxley 
and Darwin and Clifford have shown that a book may be good science 
and yet good reading. Truth has not always been found repulsive 
although she was not bedizened with rhetorical adornments; indeed, the 
very pursuit of her has long been recognized as arduous but extremely 
fascinating.'" 

If the writers of the scientific school continue to decry 
style in sentences which possess so forcible and telling a 
style as the foregoing, readers will not quarrel with them 
as to terms. You may call it style or not, but, whatever 
it is, it is forcible, and also convincing. 

FAVORABLE ASPECTS OF THE "LITERARY SIDE." 

It is true, as has been indicated by York-Powell, that 
the fundamental consideration, from the literary side, is 
the play of the imagination; and the most of us will agree 
that there is no completely satisfactory piece of historical 
work in which this has been wholly neglected. Mr. George 
M. Trevelyan, who, like Mr. Firth, has questioned the 

i"It is not his business to have a style, "(i. e.. the historian), says Mr. Stephens, 
at p. 68 of "Counsel upon the reading of books." (edited by Henry Van Dyke). 
Boston: Houghton Mifflin & Co., 1901. 

^Frederick York-Powell, at p. vi of Langlois and Seignobos's Introduction 
to the study of history." New York: H. Holt & Co., 1898. 



24 

extreme positions of Professor Bury, has remarked in a 
recent review, that "imagination is yet more necessary 
for the historian," [than for the economist], "if he wishes 
to discover the causes of man's action not merely as a 
bread-winning mdividual, but in all his myriad capacities 
of passion and of thought. The man who is himself devoid 
of emotion or enthusiasm can seldom credit, and can never 
understand, the emotions of others, which have none the 
less been a principal part in cause and effect."^ 

But an almost equally important point in favor of the 
"literary" view of the matter is concerned with the question 
of proportion. No history, indeed, is ideally satisfactory 
in which the perspective is distorted, or in which the em- 
phasis is wrongly placed. Some historians have violated 
this principle in their selection of a field of study, but the 
error has more commonly occurred in dealing with the 
details within any given field of study. 

Mr. Freeman and others of his school of historical writ- 
ing, industrious though they were, have laid themselves 
open very palpably to this objection, of violating the sense 
of proportion. Two of the characters introduced into Fred- 
erick Harrison's very diverting dialogue, or conversation, on 
points of view in history,^ say things which have a direct 
bearing on this question of proportion and perspective. 

One of these imaginary characters, (all of whom are 
introduced as Oxford "history men"), demurring at the 
depreciating view embodied in this statement, gives some 
definite details as to the methods of historical study in his 
own department; and his statement recalls the proverbial 
expression, that "One cannot see the wood for the trees." 
In answer to a question, he says: 

"I have not reached the Norman Conquest yet," * * * "for we have 
been ten years over the Old-Enghsh times; but I hope to get down to 
Eadweard" [apparently, Edward III], "before I leave the college.'" 

'Living Age, v. 240, p. 196-97. 

^"The history schools," at p. 118-38 of his volume "The meaning of history 
and other essays." New York: The Macmillan Co., 2d ed., 1900. 
^Harrison's "The meaning of history," p. 131. 



26 

And he also remarks : 

"Well," * * * "for the last three terms we have been on the West- 
Saxon coinage, and the year before that I took up the system of frith 
borrow."* 

Obviously a student working under this kind of leader 
would have to look elsewhere for any such thing as "his- 
torical perspective;" and yet historical perspective is a 
very essential prerequisite of a work of history. For a 
historical treatise ought to be on a somewhat higher plane 
as regards perspective, than, for example, a daily newspaper. 

What may be called a kindred topic is that of interest. 
Probably that view of history will hardly be hkely to 
meet with general acceptance, which argues that it is of 
no consequence whether the work of history, when once 
written and published, possesses sufficient interest to get 
itself read. Whether we agree that the essential value 
of the history of the past is that of supplying a light on the 
present and future, or not, it is easy to see that a light which 
does not shine is fruitless and ineffectual. 

Nor does it need a great amount of argument to show 
that, even if arranged in logical order, it ought not to offend 
by excessive iteration. It is well known how annoying an 
offender the English historian, Freeman, was in this respect, 
not only in his published volumes, but in his spoken lectures. 
In the recently published "Letters" of Dr. WiUiam Stubbs, 
the late Bishop of Oxford and eminent historian, there is 
evidence that this little failing of Freeman was by no 
means unnoticed by his brother-historians. In a letter 
written to Freeman in 1879, Stubbs urges the historian of 
the "Norman conquest" to make a certain announcement 
in regard to a previously published statement, "but", he 
adds, "without iterating anything"; and it is amusing to 
notice that he thought it worth while to underscore the 
word, "iterating."^ 

*Ibid., p. 131. For "frith borrow," see Murray's New English dictionary" 
under "Frithborh, " v. 4, p. 555. 

-Letters of William Stubbs, Bishop of Oxford, 1825-1901, edited by William 
Holden Hutton. London: A. Constable, 1904, p. 182. 



26 

Moreover, it is important, from the "literary" side, that 
the materials should be, so to speak, digested. One of the 
differences between the type of work known as "annals" 
or "jottings," on the one hand, and the "history," properly 
so called, on the other hand, is that the latter is something 
more than the disorderly assemblage of isolated facts. It 
is even more than the careful and orderly assemblage of 
the facts such as an apprentice at the business of historical 
investigation might bring together on occasion. There is 
perhaps no one who has more lucidly or more convincingly 
stated exactly what the historian's duty is in this matter 
than President Woodrow Wilson, of Princeton, in his 
exposition of educational methods. 

In his chapter on "The truth of the matter", (in the 
volume, "Mere literature"), he thus states the case:^ 

"It is in this that the writing of history differs, and differs very radi- 
cally, from the statement of the results of original research. The writing 
of history must be based upon original research and authentic record, 
but it can no more be directly constructed by the piecing together of 
bits of original research than by the mere reprinting together of state 
documents. Individual research furnishes us, as it were, with the 
private documents and intimate records, without which the public 
archives are incomplete and unintelligible." 

But the need of digesting the materials of history is one 
which applies even to such data as arguments, as well as to 
facts. In other words, while it is sometimes fitting that 
a work of history should embody argumentation, it ought 
to be what may perhaps be called "implicit" argumentation 
rather than explicit argumentation. Any writer may 
easily satisfy himself as to the great advantage which the 
former possesses, in point of effectiveness, by taking a 
chain of arguments which stand in rigidly logical form, 
and translating them into narrative form. The first 
attempt may perhaps not give precisely the result desired. 
Nevertheless, by writing and re-writing his narrative, test- 



^Wilson, Woodrow. Mere literature. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. 
1896, p. 171. 



27 

ing it each time with the definite questions which would 
naturally be asked by an opponent, until he finds that 
they are all represented in the narrative, he will secure 
the form required. It needs little to convince one that 
the reader is more Hkely to yield assent to the truth 
when presented in this form, than when repeated challenges 
to his pre-conceived opinions are flaunted in his face, in 
the shape of bald arguments. 

UNFAVORABLE ASPECTS OF THE "LITERARY SIDE." 

There is, however, something to be said as to the limita- 
tions and dangers of the literary point of view, as well as 
its strong points. One of these is the failure to be sure that 
verification shall always follow the exercise of the imagina- 
tion. A writer who should habituate himself to this 
faulty method will come in time to be unaware that any- 
thing is wrong with his reasoning or his conclusions. But 
this will inevitably lead to reckless, uncritical, and seriously 
misleading statements. Some luxuriant specimens of 
this unbridled use of the imagination will be found in 
newspapers, and more of them in "prospectuses" and real 
estate advertisements. 

The "literary" point of view is sometimes also found asso- 
ciated with extreme negligence in quoting a statement,, 
simply through underestimating the importance of the 
manner as compared with the matter. It has sometimes 
been claimed that a chronic tendency to mis-statement is a 
disease; and it certainly is found repeatedly where there 
is no deliberate attempt to deceive. And yet, even if it 
is a disease, it is a misfortuiie that our history should be 
written by men who are afflicted with it. There is scarcely 
one of the Nineteenth Century historians in whom this 
tendency has been so glaringly exemplified, as the late 
James Anthony Froude.^ 

^The fact that a volume bearing the expressive title, "Froudacity," by J. J. 
Thomas, should have been put in print, in 1889. in order to confute Mr. Froude, is 
in itself significant. 



28 

One of the failings of excessive leaning towards the 
"literary" view is the failing for picturesqueness. To 
quote the expressive phrase already cited above, this leads 
to a feeling that the narrative must be "dressed up." What 
could be more picturesque than Weems's George Washington 
story: — "I can't tell a lie, Pa; you know I can't tell a lie. 
I did cut it with my hatchet,"^ Or the "cabbage story" in 
which Washington's name was spelled out by the growing 
plants?^ And yet even Jared Sparks, whose position in 
regard to some questions of editing^ would be regarded 
as somewhat uncritical, in our day,^ strongly protested 
that he had "very little confidence in the genuineness or 
accuracy" of the statements of this flighty Virginia par- 
son.^ He regarded this and other books by Weems, not as 
biographies, but as "novels, founded in some parts on facts, 
and in others on the suggestions of a fertile imagination."^ 

Mischief is also sometimes caused by a mistaken seeking 
after symmetry, or consistency; and sometimes also by a 
tendency to resort to analogy unduly. It may be said of 
analogy, as of fire, that it is a good servant, but a bad 
master. The principal objection to be brought against 
this tendency is that it saddles a man with "a fixed idea." 
At present, for instance, the whole civilized world is look- 
ing on wiih breathless interest, at the upheavals in Russia; 
and some of us are re-reading our Carlyle's "French Revo- 



i"The Life of George Washington," by Mason Lock Weems, Philadelphia, 
1800. Later edition published by Joseph .AJlen, 1837, p. 14. 

^Ibid., p. 15-18. 

^Somowhat full opportunities for reviewing the voluminous literature connected 
with the discussion of Sparks's methods will be found in the references given in Herbert 
B. Adams's" The life and writings of Jared Sparks, " Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & 
Co., 2 v., 1803, particularly at p. 479-503 and 612-13 of v. 2, and at p. xxvii-xlvii 
of V. 1; and also in Justin Winsor's "Narrative and critical history of America," 
'Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., v. 8, (1889), p. 417-20. 

*The modern or current point of view is well embodied in the four-page leaflet 
ssued in 1903 by the American Historical Association, comprising "Suggestions 
for the printing of documents relating to American history," prepared by Edward 
G. Bourne, Chairman of the Historical Manuscripts Commission, Worthington C- 
Ford, of the Library of Congress, and J. Franklin Jameson, of the Carnegie Institute 
at Washington. 

^Adams's "Jared Sparks," v. 2, p. 517. 

oibid., p. 519. 



29 

lution." It is all very well to read this study of revolution 
in a country like France, provided that we do not go to 
the length of looking for the re-appearance of all the suc- 
cessive stages in the drama now enacting in this other 
country. It is doubtless true that more than one of the 
various traits, events, and circumstances observed in the 
French experience, either has been reproduced in the 
Russian experience, or may be at some time in the near 
future. And yet, because of this very fact, that the analogy 
seems to hold in these few instances, it is all the more the 
duty of the historian to guard against hasty generalizations 
as to the remainder of the instances. Suppose, for example, 
that some leader in the Russian government should lend an 
ear to advisers who should dwell upon the analogy of the 
former great catastrophe to the present experiences. Sup- 
pose, moreover, that^they should not only base predictions 
and inferences on these analogies, but also definite measures 
of repression. The probabihty is by no means a remote one, 
that in this way, injury and suffering might be inflicted on 
many entirely innocent men and women. 

There is perhaps no more effective way of studying the 
limitations and tendencies of the "literary" view than in 
the person of a "literary historian." Macaulay, for ex- 
ample, is pre-eminently entitled to such a designation, for 
his place in English literature is well assured, whatever may 
be the ultimate decision as to his position as a historian. To 
an exceptionally wide range of knowledge, improved by a 
university education, he added an extraordinary range of 
reading, and a memory which was nothing short of phenom- 
enal. That his work is not wholly free from inacciu'acy^ is 

*A novel reason is advanced by a recent essayist, to account for the criticism 
which has been directed, largely within the last thirty years, against the matter 
and the method of Macanlay's history, namely, the fact that it has come under the 
observation of a much wider circle of readers' than is customary with historians. 
' 'That Stubbs, Freeman, Hallam, Gardiner, do not have as many fault-finders as 
Macaulay is due in a measure, at least, to the fact that they have not one fiftieth part 
of his readers; and the 'readers whom they have' belong to certain general classes." 
("The vitality of Macaulay," by HenrygD. Sedgwick, Jr., in the Atlantic, Aug., 
1899, V. 84, p. 167. Reprinted in his "Essays on great writers," Boston: Houghton, 
Mifflin, & Co., 1903, at p. 139-97, but with considerable additions and changes.) 



30 

perhaps not surprising, when this wide range, just men- 
tioned, is considered. Yet the more serious fact is 
that he did not approach his task with an absohitely 
open mind, that his mental attitude sometimes shows not 
merely prejudice but malignity;^ and that he was not 
always magnanimous enough to correct an obvious 
error .^ In repeated instances also, more important con- 
siderations were sacrificed, in his narrative, to pictur- 
esqueness. And yet when all is said, the fact remains that 
he is a very great historian, and will always have a strong 
hold on the interest of the reader.^ 

An equally instructive instance is found in the case of 
James Anthony Froude."* He resembles Macaulay in 
making a successful appeal to the interest of the reader. 
Moreover, if Macaulay is sometimes open to the charge of 
overloaded rhetoric, Froude was the master of an ex- 
quisite English style. There is, however, no other English 
historian against whom the charge of inaccuracy has lain 
so heavily. Examples are found in all of his writings, but 
perhaps an instance in his volume on "Erasmus"^ shows it 
in as striking a manner as any other. In a single paragraph 
of only eighteen lines, (in which there are sixteen state- 
ments), relating to Reuchlin, (says a writer in the 

^As in the Mac Vey Napier "Correspondence," p. 110; also in Trevelyan's 
"Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay," v. 1, p. 218. 

^As in the William Penn instance, and other instances cited in John Paget's 
"The new examen, " Edinburgh: W. Blackwood & Sons, 1861. 

^"It has been objected to Macaulay that he is a stranger to the methods and the 
spirit of what has been called the critical school of history. He is a picturesque 
narrator, but not, in the sense of that school, a scientific historian. " (Sir Richard 
C. Jebb's "Macaulay, — a lecture delivered at Cambridge on August 10, 1900," Cam- 
bridge: University Press, 1900, p. 12-13. One other important limitation is pointed 
out by Mr. James Cotter Morison. "Macaulay," he says, "never fully appreciated 
the force of moderation, the impressiveness of calm under-statement, the penetrating 
power of irony." Morison's "Macaulay", ("English Men of Letters") New York: 
Harper & Bros., 1882, p. 129. 

*An interesting volume published within the last twelve months is devoted to 
an extended study of this historian, namely, "The life of Froude," by Herbert Paul, 
New York: G. Scribner's Sons, 1905. Heretofore the most extended examination 
of his life and work had been the more than one hundred pages devoted to him in 
Sir John Skelton's "Table-talk of Shirley," Edinburgh: W. Blackwood & Sons, 
1895, p. 119-24. 

''Froude, James Anthony. Life and letters of Erasmus New York: 0. Scrib- 
ner's Sons, 1894. See p. 182 of this edition. 



81 

Quarterly Review, in 1898),^ there is "one, and only one 
correct statement". The other fifteen are incorrect. ''In 
the case of Mr. Froude", says the reviewer, "the problem 
ever is to discover whether he has deviated into truth. "'* 
Mr. Harrison complains^ that "this severe judgment" is 
true not only of Mr. Froude's transcription of documents, 
but of his lack of precision in his use of language in general, 
and of his want of "minute fidelity of detail."^ 

There is, however, this additional cause for apprehension, 
on the part of a reader of Mr. Froude, that in his case the 
inaccuracy was ingrained, if not constitutional.^ Still 
further, while this inaccuracy is acknowledged and even 
insisted on, by his most sympathetic biographers,^ Mr, 
Froude himself seemed scarcely aware' of this limitation. 
Moreover, his inaccuracy has repeatedly taken the pecu- 
liarly dangerous form of confusing the references to his 
sources. "He had," says Mr. Lang, "an unfortunate habit of 
publishing, between marks of quotation, his own resume of 
the contents of a document. In doing so he would leave 
out, with no marks of omission (....) passages which 
he thought irrelevant, but which might be all-important 



'Quarterly Review, July, 1898, v. 188, p. 1-30. 

^Ibid.. p. 3. 

^"The historical method of J. A. Froude," by Frederic Harrison, Nineteenth 
Century, Sept., 1898, v. 44, p. 373-85; reprinted in his volume, "Tennyson, Ruskin, 
Mill, and other Uterary estimates." New York: The Macmillan Co., 1900, p. 221-41. 
See p. 240. 

*An almost equally serious indictment of Froude, so far as regards details, is 
found in the article on "Modern historians and their methods," by H. A. L. Fisher, 
in the Fortnightly Review, Dec. 1, 1894, v. 62, p. 815. Compare also Langlois and 
Seignobos's "Introduction to the study of history," p. 125. 

^This defect was intensified by the faulty methods of his early education. "The 
standard of scholarship, " says Mr. Paul, "at Buckfastleigh was not high, and Froude'a 
scholarship was inexact." (Paul's "Froude," p. 10.) 

"Both Mr. Paul and Mr. Lang. See Paul's "Froude", p. 23, 93, 334; also p. 10, 
above cited. 

Mr. Lang, in his keen examination of "Freeman versus Froude," pauses to 
remark sadly: "Next, Mr. Froude, with all hia diligence and learning, really was 
inaccurate." (Gomhill Magazine, Feb., 1906, v. 92, p. 253.) 

'Mr. Lang quotes Mr. Froude as having "acknowledged to five real mistakes 
in the whole book, twelve volumes, " out of those attributed to him; and then adds: 
"But if the critics only found out 'five real mistakes,' they served the author very 
ill." (Cornhill Magazine, Feb., 1906, v. 92, p. 257-58.) Mr. Lang then goes on, (p. 
258-63), to enumerate instance after instance. 



82 

to the sense, "^ Mr. Froude has the distinction of having 
used original sources on a larger scale than any preceding 
English historian.^ Yet this distinction is largely dimmed 
by his faulty method of transcribing documents. His 
eccentricity in this respect has led to the disparaging 
comment that "A historian is not always known by the 
archives whose company he keeps. "^ His method, instead 
of being objective, was subjective^ in the highest degree. 
He usually wrote as an avowed advocate.^ He "could 
not write," says Mr. Paul, "without a purpose, nor forget 
that he was an Englishman and a Protestant."^ Instead, 



>Cornliill Magazine, Feb., 1906. v. 92, p. 254. 

'The first volume of his "History of England" was published in 1842. 

*It is also very well characterized in an amusing skit by Frederic Harrison which 
created "inextinguishable laughter," at Oxford more than a dozen years ago. This 
first appeared under the title of "The royal road to history. — An Oxford dialogue,'" 
in the Fortnightly Review, Oct. 1, 1893, and was afterwards reprinted, (with the 
title, "The history schools"), in Mr. Harrison's volume, "The meaning of history,'^ 
London: Macmillan & Co., 1900, p. 118-38. One of the characters is consumed 
with laughter at the fact that Mr. Froude has given citations of the documenta 
at Simancas: — "Simancas! Facts! Oh, oh! Simancas indeed! where, what, how 
much? what volume or what bundle, what page and what folio? Mss. penes 
me — is a very convenient reference, but historians require a little more detail than 
this." (Harrison's "The meaning of history," p. 128.) 

*His words, (as printed in one of his latest volumes), are worth reproducing. 
"I do not pretend," he says, "to impartiality ... In every conclusion 
which we form, in every conviction which is forced upon us, there is still a subjective 
element," (Froude's "Divorce of Catherine of Aragon," London: Longmans, Green & 
Co., 1891, p. 18. Quoted in E. G. Bourne's "Essays in historical criticism," New 
York: C. Scribner's Sons. 1901, p. 295-96.) 

Such Irankness is commendable; and yet, as Mr, Lang reminds us, Mr. Froude 
apparently did nothing to neutrahze his bias. "In studying the personal aspects of 
history," says Mr. Lang, Froude "not only had a bias, but he cultivated and cher- 
ished his bias. Now every historian, every man, has a bias; but he may get the 
better of it, as did Mr. Gardiner and Sir Walter Scott, of all our British historians 
the most scrupulously fair and sportsmanlike. Scott was a born Tory, or even 
Jacobite. Mr. Gardiner was, I beUeve, a Liberal from the cradle. But you cannot 
discover their party in their historical works." (Cornhill Magazine, Feb. 1906, 
V. 92, p. 253.) 

^The judicial point of view apparently did not appeal to him. "He was," 
says Mr. Paul, "an advocate rather than a judge." (Paul's "Froude," p. 92.) It 
is as an advocate, somewhat grimly to be sure, that he makes his appearance in the 
pages of his "History of England,": when, in chronicling the order of "The King's 
royal Majesty," (in the 22d year of Henry VIII, 1531) "that the said Richard Rouse 
shall be therefore boiled to death, without having any advantage of his clergy," 
he characterizes the spirit of this inhuman action as "a temper which would keep 
no terms with evil." (Froude's "History of England," (Am. ed.). New York; 
Scribner, Armstrong, & Co., v. 1, p. 287.) Compare also the Edinburgh Review, 
(Am. ed.), v. 108, p. 119-20. 

^Paul's Froude, p. 229. 



83 

therefore, of entering on his study of this tangled subject 
with an open mind/ — a pecuharly necessary condition 
when reUgious questions are concerned, — he carried an 
unyielding prejudice with him from the start. It was 
thus, (says his biographer, Mr. Paul), that, "in his zeal to 
justify the penal laws against the Catholics, Froude 
accepted without sufficient inquiry evidence which could 
only have satisfied one willing to believe the worst. "^ 

It was Mr. Froude's fortune, during his lifetime, to have 
as an antagonist another well known English historian, 
Edward A. Freeman; and, considering the decidedly vul- 
nerable nature of Mr. Freeman's historical work and 
procedure, it may be considered to be Mr. Froude's great 
good fortune, that he is even now brought into comparison^ 
with that writer, now that both are dead. The "Tu 
quoque" argument is an effective one for the time being. 
Time, however, sifts all things, and sooner or later each 
historian will stand on his own merits. 

FAVORABLE ASPECTS OF THE "SCIENTIFIC SIDE." 

Having examined both the favorable and unfavorable 
aspects of the "Uterary" point of view, it is now in order 
to interrogate the "scientific" point of view in the same 
way. 

Science, as has already been stated, is concerned with 
the ascertainment of facts, by systematic processes, accom- 
panied by rigid verification. 

'An open mind has not always been suflBciently valued in religious discussion. 
"As regards religious questions, " says President Faunce, of Brown University, 
"there are various specific subjects, on which men may differ, but the really funda- 
mental difference is that between the man with the open mind and the man with the 
closed mind. " 

^Paul's "Froude," p. 229. 

^See chapter 5 of Paul's volume, ("Froude and Freeman); also Andrew Lang's 
article, "Freeman versus Froude," already cited, (Cornhill Magazine, Feb., 1906, 
V. 92, p. 251-63.) This example has been very generally followed by the writers of 
the more or less critical notices of Mr. Paul's book, in England and in this country, 
so much so that one would almost suppose that it is Mr. Freeman whose life and writ- 
ings were in question. A somewhat diffsrent point of view is taken by Goldwin 
Smith, in his article on "Froude" in the Atlantic Monthly, May, 1906. v. 97, p. 
680-87. 



84 

The fundamental conception, in history, from this point 
of view, is that of passing upon the facts of history with 
the critical discrimination of a judge, rather than with 
the partisan ardor of an advocate. It is, in brief, the 
"judicial" view of history. Its aim is to state "the truth, 
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," Its spirit 
has been well expressed in these words of the German 
historian, Ranke, already quoted: — "Ich will nur sagen wie 
es eigentlich gewesen ist." Its desire for the truth is well 
embodied also in these words of Professor H. Morse Ste- 
phens: "The aim of the historian is to discover the truth 
with regard to the past, as far as his limitations allow, and 
having so far discovered it to narrate the truth without 
obtruding his own personality or his own ideas more than 
his weak humanity makes inevitable."^ "It is a hard 
enough and a difficult enough task that the modern 
historian sets before himself. Truth is a very unapproach- 
able mistress". * * * "It is disheartening and heart- 
breaking to the historical student to know how little the 
most accomplished and hard-working historian can do 
towards building a palace in which Truth may live."^ 

The scientific point of view will of course operate to put 
the writer on his guard against the subjective treatment 
of history, as opposed to the purely objective treatment- 
To Ranke, the great German master of historical writing 
in the last century, — even though such writers as 
Lamprecht are now succeeding to his supremacy, — we 
owe some of the most emphatic statements of this doctrine ; 
and they are embodied especially in a noteworthy address 
on Ranke by his pupil. Dr. von Sybel, published in the 
Historische Zeitschrift in 1886. 

"A subjective element," says Dr. von Sybel, "always tends to mingle 
itself with the historian's conception, after every narrative; and it is the 
problem of historical investigation, by eliminating this, to hold up the 
true picture of the thing itself." ("In diese seine Auffassung mischt sich 



^In "Counsel upon the reading of books," p. 92-93. 
'Ibid., p. 93. 



35 

aber nach aller Erfahrung stetsein subjektives Element, unddurch dessen 
Ausscheidung des wirkliche Bild des Thatbestandes zu erhalten ist die 
Ausgabe der historischen Kritik.")' 

With the action of every-day life there is inextricably 
mingled a large share of "likes and dislikes." There are 
few, however, who would wish to see these reproduced in 
the printed volumes which form our libraries of history. 
Hasty and impulsive utterances therefore will be carefully 
eliminated from his narrative by the judicious writer, 
however naturally they may occur to his mind.^ It is a 
great art to obtain the proper position of unbiased judg- 
ment in these cases, — of complete "detachment",^ to use 
the phrase of the late Lord Acton, who was himself an 
admirable embodiment of this ideal, in his historical 
work. 

The question of prejudice is occasionally of far-reaching 
importance, — particularly when its existence is unsuspected 
or, possibly, "subliminal." "Know thyself" is an injunc- 
tion which all of us would gladly comply with, if possible. 
And yet, who of us can be sure that, even in the matter of 
underlying prejudices, one can really know himself? The 
man of today lives in an atmosphere, — so far as likes and 
dislikes, or thoughts and beliefs are concerned, — which is 
partly created by the general level of public opinion in the 
person's own community; partly by the person's own 

i"Gedachtnisrede auf Leopold v. Ranke, " by Heinrich von Sybel, in Histo- 
rische Zeitschrift. v. 56, (1886), p. 474. 

^And yet it is not an unprecedented occurrence for utterances like these to get 
into print under the guise of history, as in the case of the bulky volume of more 
than 750 pages, by the late Gen. John A. Logan, published under the title of "The 
great conspiracy," in 1885. Of this work, a reviewer in the Nation, (June 3, 1886, 
V. 42, p. 475), writes: "It is not a history, although it purports to be one. It is 
rather what might be called a narrative stump speech, with no limitation as to time 
of delivery, except the orator's good pleasure or fatigue." In his excited peroration, 
the author passes from Italics to small capitals, and from these to capitals, under the 
influence of the strong feeling, — not to say "prejudice," — which animates the book, 
as follows: "Like the Old Man of the Sea, they are now on top, and they mean to 
KEEP THERE IF THEY CAN." ("The g:reat conspiracy," by John A. Logan, New 
York: A. R. Hart & Co., 1885, p. 674.) 

'See Lord Acton's "Lecture on the study of history," (inaugural lecture at the 
University of Cambridge, 1895), p. 4. Elsewhere in the same lecture, he commends 
in Ranke what Michelet calls "le desinteressement des morts, " p. (51). 



36 

immediate environment; more by tradition, perhaps: 

but even more by heredity. 

The work of one other eminent German authority is 

partially accessible to English readers, namely, that of 

Johann Gustav Droysen, whose "Grundriss der Historik," 

(1868), was translated into English by Dr. E. Benjamin 

Andrews, under the title of "Outline of the principles of 

history", Boston; Ginn & Co., 1893. The translator cites, 

(p. viii), as one of the reasons why, in his judgment, 

such a treatise is needed, in English, as follows: 

"In most directions one finds a stronger zeal for the knowledge of his- 
tory than for the understanding of history. We are so busy at gathering 
facts that no time is left us to reflect upon their deeper meanings. Too 
many who wish to be considered historians seem hardly less enthusiastic 
over the history of some town pump, provided it is 'fresh' and 'written 
from the sources,' than over that of the rise of a constitution." 

In 1889 appeared a comprehensive treatise by Ernst 
Bernheim, entitled "Lehrbuch der historischen Methode, 
mit Nachweis der wichtigsten Quellen und Hiilfs- 
mittel zum Studium der Geschichte," published at Leipzig, 
by Duncker, (2d edition in 1894). An equally noteworthy 
volume, in another language, appeared in 1898, namely, 
"Introduction aux etudes historiques," by C. V. Langlois 
and C. Seignobos, Paris; Hachette et Cie. In the same 
year appeared the English translation, "Introduction to 
the study of history," (by Langlois and Seignobos), 
translated by G. G. Berry, and containing a preface by 
the] late Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford, 
Frederick York-Powell. New York; H. Holt & Co. The 
subjects are treated with great acuteness, (as in the 
chapter on "The negative internal criticism of the good 
faith and accuracy of authors", (p. 155-90), and with 
characteristic French lucidity. 

One of the latest of these admirably comprehensive 
European studies appeared in 1903, namely "Die Wert- 
schatzung in der Geschichte; eine kritische Untersuchung," 
by Arvid Grotenfelt, Leipzig: Veit & Co. 



37 

Although this work^ is published in the German language, 
the learned author is a lecturer on psychology at the 
University of Helsingfors, in Finland. In the chapter, 
"Die Ausscheidung des Bedeutsamen", typical instances 
of recent and contemporary historians are examined, in- 
cluding Ranke, Buckle, Lamprecht, etc., p. 129-75.^ 

It is an interesting fact that the latest historian of Rhode 
Island^ has incidentally indicated, by a statement, in one 
of his letters, that he is thoroughly in accord with the prin- 
ciple above cited, from Dr. von Sybel. Mr. Richman's 
statement is as follows: 

"The narrative part was finished before I began to group the philoso- 
phy therein. I finished the narrative, and then, on revising it, began to 
understand its philosophical significance. This so struck me that I went 
back over my work, and, without bending it at all, merely pointed out 
its teaching. This, it seems to me, is exactly what the historical inves- 
tigator should do — study his facts, and then, if he finds meaning therein, 
announce it."* 

Nor must the historian's attitude be that of imdervaluing 
the effort required; for a fundamental principle is a 
constant recognition of the difficulty of getting at the 
truth of any occurrence. It must be assumed, at the out- 
set, that the testimony will vary, and will vary very widely. 

In Browning's "The Ring and the Book", we have the 
story told of the self-same thing, by all of the various 
parties to the transaction, respectively. We have the 
story as told by Count Guido Franceschini, who has been 
accused of committing the murder. There is also the 
narrative of the priest, Giuseppe Caponsacchi. There is the 

^Reviewed in the Athenaeum, (London), March 12, 1904, p. 333-34. 

^An admirable volume which does not purport to be a comprehensive treatise, 
but merely "Essays in historical criticism," was pubhshed by our associate. Professor 
Edward G. Bourne, in 1901, as one of the "Yale Bicentennial Publications." 

^Richman, Irving Berdine. Rhode Island: its making and its meaning. 2 v. 
New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1902. 

*This extract from Mr. Richman's letter is printed in the Nation, Feb. 5, 1903, 
V. 76, p. 110. It is noteworthy that this book cannot in any way be traced to 
"ancestor worship. The author was born in Iowa, nearly a thousand miles away 
from Rhode Island, and had never been in [Rhode Island] imtU he came there to 
begin his investigations. Among his ancestors there is not a single Rhode Island 
family, and not even a single New England family " 



38 

narrative of Pompilia herself, as told in the interval between 
her striking down and the drawing of her last breath. 
There are also the statements presented by the counsel for 
the defendant and the public prosecutor respectively. 
There are also three most ingenious and skilful attempts 
at expressing the ''pubUc opinion" of PompiHa's com- 
munity, as we may call it, (in some ways the most difficult 
of all the narratives), entered under the head of "Half- 
Rome," "The other half-Rome," and ''Tertium quid". 
There is, moreover, the review of the whole case, by the Pope, 
minutely examining every detail, and reaching conclusions 
in a most judicial manner. And thus Browning places 
before us in an almost incredibly illuminating manner, 
what he calls 

"pure crude fact 
Secreted from man's life, when hearts beat hard,"^ 

This has an especially important bearing on that phase of 
the historian's work which deals with the examination of 
other men's testimony, rather than with the gathering of facts 
at first hand. Specific instances of historical sifting of testi- 
mony will be brought under consideration, later. 

One of the first things to which the historian needs to 
turn his attention in his examination of the medium through 
which his information or material reaches him, is the 
question of prejudice. It is of vital consequence to him 
to know whether the facts have reached him distorted by 
prejudice, and colored by excited feeling. Obviously the 
writer who is setting down a dispassionate narrative 
of religious history, in using the immense mass of "con- 
troversial" or "polemical" pamphlets which strew the 
shore of literature like driftwood, must start by recogniz- 
ing the existence of the "odium theologicum," and do his 
best to exercise a wise discrimination. As with religion, 
so with politics. About 25 years ago the late Alexander 
Johnston published what was at once recognized as a 

'Browning's "The Ring and the Book," book 1. lines 35-36. 



89 

"colorless"^ work on American politics.^ How notable 
an achievement it was, to present a colorless narrative of 
the seething mass of heated and prejudiced American 
politics, any one who has searched through a large collec- 
tion of American pamphlets will easily recognize. 

There is another aspect of the matter which must give 
us pause. It is that of the tendency of perhaps the typical 
liberal or unprejudiced man to be slightly deficient in some 
one direction. Like Achilles, who was vulnerable at the 
heel alone, there is, in the case of these men who are broad 
and liberal minded, on the whole, some one subject on 
which they develop astonishing antipathies. It is surely 
not in the nature of man to be absolutely perfect; and the 
imperfection of human nature will assert itself, do what one 
will. But we need to guard most carefully against the 
penetration of this prejudiced view into history, and to be 
able to recognize it and be on our guard against it when it 
has, by any means, penetrated into this field .^ 

There are some who affect to underrate the objectionable 
features of prejudice, and even to glorify what is regarded 
as "a wholesome prejudice."^ None the less, however, 
the existence of prejudice is a deplorable thing, — not to 
say, detestable, — in even an ordinary individual, guiltless 
of any attempts to write history or any other form of 
literature. In a historian, however, it is nothing less than 
shocking; and the instances which are on record, as well 



^In this term, "colorless," lies a concise characterization of the point of view 
of the historians who look to Ranke as their master. "Ranke," says Lord Acton, 
"is the representative of the age which instituted the modern study of history. He 
taught it to be critical, to be colorless and to be new." "Lecture on the study of 
history, " p. 48 ) 

^Johnston, Alexander. History of American politics. New York: Henry 
Holt & Co., 1880. 

^" Improvement," says John Stuart Mill, (in his St. Andrew's "Inaugural address, " 
Feb. 1, 1867), "consists in bringing our opinions into nearer agreement with facts; 
and we shall not be likely to do this while we look at facts only through glasses col- 
ored by those very opinions." Mill's "Inaugural address." p. 25, (reprinted at p. 
349 of V. 4 of his "Dissertations and discussions," New York: H. Holt & Co., 1874.) 

*A writer in the Athenseum, (Nov. 4, 1905, p. 603), mildly protests, and perhaps 
justly, against that perversion of impartiality which may be described as "inhuman." 
But these instances are certainly rare. 



40 

authenticated, of deep and implacable prejudices, on the 
part of men of the highest order of historical talents, such 
as Macaulay^ and Freeman,^ are an impressive testimony 
to the possibilities which exist, of perverting history. It is 
bad enough to find so low a conception of history as that 
which regards it simply "as a club," with which to thump 
those mipleasant people who do not agree with us, on the 
part of individuals and historical societies whose oppor- 
tunities for developing a more enlightened view have been 
limited; but to find a similar failing, in the case of the 
more enlightened leaders, is inexpressibly depressing. 
Again, the critical student of history needs to be able to 
discern whether the writers whose historical discussions 
are under criticism can properly distinguish between 
matters of fact and matters of opinion. Strange as it may 
seem, this is a failure which is not uncommon. 

It is, however, the judicial element which is fundamental, 
in any scientific view of history. The historian is expected 
to be something more than the witness, offering testimony, 
and presenting it in a confused and unintelligent manner. 
He is expected to be something quite the reverse of the advo- 
cate, presenting a one-sided view of the case. On the con- 
trary, it is the procedure on the bench which supplies the 
closest analogy to the aims and methods of the con- 
scientious historian. 

We may here perhaps appropriately consider for a 
moment an interesting paradox of judicial experience, 
namely, that it is sometimes the special pleaders at the 
bar who, on being elevated to the bench, become distin- 
guished as among the most ''judicial" of judges. And in- 

^"See whether I do not dust that varlet's jacket for him in the next number 
of the Blue and Yellow. I detest him more than cold boiled veal. " In such a 
Christian temper wrote Macaulay to his sister, in 1831, of a contemporary statesman 
and htt^rateur, John Wilson Croker. (Trevelyan's "Life and letters of Lord Macau- 
lay." (Am. ed.), New York: Harper & Bros., 1875, v. 1. p. 218.) 

^"I shall embowel James Anthony Froude. " These are the words in which 
Mr. Freeman gleefully notes down the fact of an error discovered in a volume of 
Froude, as scribbled <'n the margin of his own copy. (Mr. Lang, in Cornhill, Feb. 
1906, V. 92, p. 253.) 



41 

deed there is one curious and instructive phase of this 
experience, namely, when such a judge finds himself called 
upon to pass mental judgment on an advocate who is disposed 
to press his argument too far. It is, of course, the duty of 
the advocate to be in a certain sense "a special pleader," 
and his obligations to his client make it necessary that 
he shall select and arrange his facts so skilfully as to 
produce great weight in favor of his client, in the minds of 
the jury, of the audience, and, — I may add, — of any judge 
who has not known these ways of special pleaders, "at 
first hand." But as the advocate goes over this ground, 
the judge can say to himself, — ' There he is again with his 
flimsy reasoning. What rot! Does he really think that 
he can pull the wool over anybody's eyes?" When, there- 
fore, the judge comes to the summing up of the case, in 
his own mind, he gives no more weight to this plea than it 
actually deserves; and he thus is able to protect the in- 
terests of the public. 

Still further, although the judge may from time to time 
feel impatience at such extreme presentations of the case 
by an advocate, he is, on the whole, by no means averse to 
seeing an argument pushed to the extreme, so that one 
can really see "all that there is in it." In other words, he 
knows the value of having the case thoroughly "threshed 
out," as the phrase runs. Probably in thus getting a 
case "threshed out," there is inevitably a certain amount 
of injustice done, to the interests of one side or the other, 
by thus going to the extreme. But probably, also, there 
will not be, in our time at least, a method of legal procedure 
which will come nearer than this to meeting the needs, 
and fulfilling the interests of the entire community, — in 
spite of all its drawbacks. And, so far as the judge him- 
self is concerned, while he will sometimes involuntarily 
exclaim against the absurdity of some claim, he will at 
other times have to acknowledge to himself: "Well, now, 
I never should have thought of that!" 



42 

To all this, the procedure of the historian, in his critical 
examination of the writings of other authors, supplies a 
close analogy. If he should be making an exhaustive study 
of some given subject, he can hardly afford to pass over 
without examination even the most foolish of the books 
and pamphlets on the subject; — and there are some sub- 
jects which prove to be very prolific in foolish pamphlets. 
The analogy, as I have said, is a close one; and yet there is 
one particular in which it apparently does not quite hold ; — 
the fact that, as Mr. Harrison has reminded us,* "cross- 
examination^ is impossible or, at least, difficult to the 
historian." 

What would one not give for the opportunity to put the 
necessary questions, which, in the hands of a skilful cross- 
examiner, would cause the facts to leap to light ! Such, for 
instance, as in Mr. Charles E. Hughes's examination of the 
Vice-President of the New York Life Insurance Company, 
resulting in the quite reluctant testimony of the witness, 
that a certain loan was made Dec. 31, 1904, and repaid 
five days later, Jan. 5, 1905, — after the occasion for making 
an official report had passed.^ 

And yet, even though all the parties to the transaction 
are themselves dead, and although the events may be those 
of four centuries ago, an at least approximately useful 
result may follow from the prolonged and detailed discus- 
sion of the subject in print by those who hold opposing 
\dews in regard to it. 

THE "squire papers." 

In this, as in other fields of study or thought, we may best 
learn from a specific instance. One of the most judicial of 

^Harrison's "The meaning of history," p. 134. 

^"Cross-examination, nevertheless, would be invaluable to the writer who has 
to set down accurately any set of facts, historical or otherwise; and any historian 
can find suggestions of value in such a work as "The art of cross-examination," 
by Mr. Wellman. "People," says Mr. Wellman, "as a rule do not reflect upon their 
meagre opportunities for observing facts, and rarely suspect the frailty of their own 
powers of observation," (At p. 27 of "The art of cross-examination," by Francis 
L. Wellman, New York: The Macmillan Co., 1903.) 

^Reported in the daily newspapers of Sept. 28, and Sept. 29, 1905. 



43 

our modern historians was the late Samuel Rawson Gar- 
diner, the eminent English writer who so admirably covered 
the period of the Stuarts and the Commonwealth.^ The 
opportunity presented itself to him, to resort to a process 
analogous to cross-examination, when he came to that 
precise portion of his narrative which is covered by the 
so-called "Squire papers". 

Let me interrupt the order of this paper for a moment, 
to explain briefly what these "Squire papers" were, which 
had the interesting fate of being presented to the con- 
sideration of Carlyle in 1847, and of Gardiner in 1885, — 
their authenticity having been questioned in each instance. 
Samuel Squire, whose name has become associated with 
these documents, was one of the soldiers of Oliver Cromwell. 
These thirty-five letters, purporting to have been written 
by Cromwell himself, belong to the years 1641-45.^ 
They were brought to Carlyle's attention in 1847, two 
years after his work on "Oliver Cromwell's letters and 
speeches" had been published in 1845, and it was William 
Squire, a descendant of Samuel Squire, who placed them 
in his hands. Whatever examination of the letters was 
undertaken ended in their being accepted as genuine by 
Carlyle; and they were printed as an appendix to one of 
the volumes, (vol. 2), of Carlyle's "Oliver Cromwell's 
Letters and Speeches", when this work went through a 
later edition, in 1857. The controversy then slept for 
many years, till it was precipitated again by a discussion 
in the Academy, (the English critical journal), in regard 
to the date of death of Cromwell's son.^ The discussion, 
however, almost immediately shifted to the broader 
question of the genuineness of the Squire papers, and was 

^When Mr. Gardiner died, in 1902, his series of volumes covering the history of 
England in the Seventeenth Century, extended from 1607 to 1656, (published between 
1869 and 1901.) 

^To be found in print, in Eraser's Magazine, Dec, 1847, v. 36, p. 631-54; Littell's 
Living Age, Jan. 29, 1848, v. 16, p. 214-24; in Chapman & Hall's "People's edition" 
of Carlyle's "Oliver Cromwell's Letters and Speeches," ed. of 1857, v. 2, p. 261-96; 
also in later editions, as in the "Centenary edition", v. 7, (1897), p. 338-76. 

^Letter of S. R. Gardiner, Academy, March 14, 1885, v. 27, p. 188. 



u 

■continued, (first in the pages of the Academy, and later in 
the pages of the Enghsh Historical Review), for the next 
two years; in other words, from March 14, 1885, to April, 
1887. There were several correspondents who participated 
in the discussion, but it was, after all, chiefly instructive for 
the contributions made to it by three eminent men. These 
were Mr. William Aldis Wright, the acute Shakespearian 
critic; Mr. Walter Rye, an eminent authority on public 
records; and Mr. Gardiner himself. Mr. Wright was in- 
clined to the belief that the papers were genuine, and that 
they were trustworthy material for any historian who 
should use them. He showed no heat in his argument, 
and, while falling into some errors himself, pointed out 
very lucidly several which were made by his opponents. 
Although Mr. Wright's argument was conducted with 
much ability, an impartial review of the whole subject, 
after the lapse of about twenty years, leaves the impres- 
sion that, on the whole, the truth was on the other side, — 
or at least not on his side. In the second place, Mr. Rye 
held the view that the papers were not genuine ; — a position 
which he argued with much heat. Although some of the 
positions which he maintained are those which have come 
to be accepted, it is probable that, at the time, he occasion- 
ally did more damage to his side than real service, through 
his dogmatic attitude, and his hot-headedness, which led 
him, in more than one instance, into situations from which 
he extricated himself with great difficulty. While these 
are qualities which cannot commend him, yet it ought to 
be said, — parenthetically, — that Mr. Rye had certain other 
qualities which do commend him, including a strong sense 
of humor. I cannot resist the temptation to cite a 
striking instance of this, taken from the preface to 
a volume, (on another subject), which he published in 
1888. He writes as follows: "That I must have made 
innumerable omissions and mistakes I know well 
enough; but I ask my readers to be merciful, and to 



46 

send me, more in sorrow than in anger, their corrections 
and additions."^ 

Lastly, Mr. Gardiner, although frankly avowing his 
position at the beginning of the discussion, as that of dis- 
satisfaction with the evidence in favor of the Squire papers, 
was plainly in search, throughout the entire correspondence, 
of the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. 
During the discussion, even he was led into some untenable 
positions, from which he immediately withdrew when 
these were shown in their true light. On the whole, how- 
ever, his letters succeeded in laying bare the weak points 
in the Squire papers; and these were not few. It is 
significant, that his letters had the effect of drawing 
the comments of the other parties to the discussion in 
such a way as to exhibit, — for him, and for any one 
else interested in the subject, — nearly every conceivable 
phase of it; and in this way he secured what was ana- 
logous to the effect of cross-examination, in court. When 
Mr. Gardiner reached his final conclusion, this conclusion 
proved to be an eminently judicial one. He expressed no 
judgment whatever as to whether the Squire letters had 
been, on the one hand, forged throughout, or whether, on 
the other hand, they were genuine letters which had been 
recklessly tampered with. To use his own language, the 
papers were "unavailable for historical purposes.'"* This 
question was, after all, his chief concern; and it is 
an interesting fact that in the two volumes^ of his 
great work which cover any part of the period in ques- 
tion, (1641-45),^ no mention whatever is made of the 
"Squire papers" in the text, or in the index, or any- 
where else. 

^Rye, Walter. Records and record searching: a guide to the genealogist and 
topographer. Published in the United States, by Cupples & Kurd , Boston, 1888' 
p. ii. 

^S. R. Gardiner, in English Historical Review, July, 1886, v. 1, p. 520. 

3" The fall of the monarchy of Charles I." v. 2, 1640-42, (pub. 1882) and the 
"History of the great Civil War," v. 1 1642-44, (pub. 1886). 

*The earliest letter of the thirty-five is dated "March, 1641," and the latest 
"March 3. 1645." 



46 

To one who is unfamiliar with historical investigation 
and its methods, this may perhaps seem a "lame and 
impotent conclusion", but not to the real historian, — 
certainly not to Mr. Gardiner himself. "Art is long", 
declares the poet, in the well-known lines, but so also is the 
art of historical investigation; and some of its fmidamental 
prerequisites, as illustrated in this instance of Mr. Gardiner, 
are patience, restraint, and scrupulous regard for the truth. 
Indeed, it is not an uncommon experience for the historian 
to have to be content, (as the late Sir Leslie Stephen has 
so well put it,) "to toil for hours with the single result of 
having to hold his tongue."^ It is certainly better to 
discover definitely that there is no evidence, than to assume 
the existence of evidence and to be obliged to retreat from 
this assumption, later. 

The result reached in Mr. Gardiner's^ case, besides 
being one which accords with the judicial view of historical 
method, accords with much of the experience which awaits 
any man who undertakes to carry the judicial temper into 
every-day life. For instance, we will suppose that you 
meet an acquaintance on the street, who is laboring under 
great excitement. ' 'Well, " you say, ' 'what has happened?" 
"Great heavens!", he cries, "Did you ever see such injus- 
tice! I have just taken a civil service examination, and 
failed to pass. But then, everybody knows that a man of 
my politics stands no chance whatever." And plainly he 
expects you to believe that that is actually the cause. As a 
matter of fact, you neither believe it nor disbelieve it. The 

^Stephen, Sir Leslie. Studies of a biographer, v. 1, (1898), p. 22. 

'It is significant that although Mr. Gardiner has an exalted opinion of Carlyle's 
"monumental work," he has found occasion to distrust his editorial methods. Com- 
menting, in 1901, on one of Cromwell's letters, Mr. Gardiner writes: "Carlyle here, 
as in so many other places, amends the text without warning." (Gardiner's "His- 
tory of the Commonwealth and Protectorate," v. 3, p. 27.) As Spenser has been 
called "the poet's poet," so Gardiner may perhaps be called "the historian's 
historian, " so strikingly do his qualities of caution, accuracy, candor, and 
sanity appeal to one who writes history. Mr. James F. Rhodes, for instance, 
in a brief but significant appreciation of Gardiner, in the Atlantic, remarks: "We 
know the history of England from 1603 to 1666 better than we do that of any other 
period of the world; and for this we are indebted mainly to Samuel Rawson Gardi- 
ner." (Atlantic Monthly, May, 1902, v. 89. p. 701.) 



47 

statement is held in your mind, (just as some substances are 
held undissolved in water), because you have not the 
necessary data which would lead to any opinion on the 
subject on one side or the other. 

The determination of motive constitutes one of the 
most perplexing of all the problems which a judge is ever 
called upon to solve; and the same thing is true of the 
judicial historian. It is true that one of the first questions 
which the judge is actually obliged to ask himself, in consid- 
ering the action of a party to a lawsuit, and also one of the 
first questions which the historian is obHged to ask himself, 
in studying the career of a character in history, is this : — 
''What was the motive in the case?" This is a question, more- 
over, which, if asked by a conscientious judge, is put with 
an absolute recognition of the fact that the complexity of 
conditions may possibly make this attempted interpretation 
of motive not only difficult but misleading. The judge 
consequently, in his consideration of the defendant's case, 
mentally takes up one motive after another, bringing them 
all to as rigid a test as possible, in connection with what is 
known of the man's actions, and dropping the hypothesis 
whenever it is not found to stand the test. In other words, 
the judge's aim, or underlying principle, must be this: — 
"All that there is in it"; and it will necessarily be embodied 
not only in the complete "threshing out" which the case 
gets in court, but in that even more difficult and more deter- 
mined canvassing which it gets in the judge's own mind, in 
the mental review and analysis which he gives it. In the 
case of a conscientious judge, determined to hold, as his own 
opinion in the matter, nothing which will not stand the 
uttermost test, it may well be imagined how exhaustive, — 
nay, liow exhausting, — must be the mental processes re- 
quired. There is a most skilful portrayal of such a judge, 
in one of Anthony Trollope's less important stories of 
English life. This story is "John Caldigate," pubHshed 
in 1879; and it is, on the whole, a most disagreeable and 



48 

depressing piece of literary work. Yet in his chapter on 
"Judge Bramber", Trollope has admirably set forth what 
must be the ideal mental attitude not only of the impartial 
judge, but of the conscientious historian as well. Judge 
Bramber had great difficulty in getting into his mind a 
conception of that view of the case which the reader knows, 
(from the previous chapters of the book), to be the true 
one, because it is really a very unusual and improbable 
point of view, on the part of the defendant. The judge's 
wrestling with the case is a long, determined, and painful 
one. Yet he finally does reach this view of the case, and 
renders his decision. In other words, he satisfies himself 
that in this particular instance the unexpected and the 
improbable could occur, — and did occur. 

As in Biblical criticism, so in historical criticism, both 
the higher criticism and the textual criticism have their 
place. As an instance of textual criticism, in the discus- 
sion of the "Squire papers" already referred to, may be 
cited the letter^ in which Cromwell wrote the date, — if he 
did actually write this letter, — as "Christmas Eve." At 
first sight, this would appear to be conclusive evidence 
against the genuineness of the letter. Would so uncom- 
promising a Puritan as Cromwell, use a prohibited expres- 
sion like this, in the thick of the Puritan conflict? Mr. 
Gardiner, writing in the Academy, asks, with rather telling 
effect, — "What would a collector of autographs of the 
twentieth century say if he were asked to buy a supposed 
letter of Simeon or Wilberforce, dated 'The Nativity of 
the Blessed Virgin Mary'?"^ Mr. Wright, in the same 
journal, two weeks later, remarks sagaciously: "An Act 
of Parliament can do much, but it cannot eradicate a 
long-standing personal habit ;"^ and this is a consideration 
which ought to give us pause when we are unduly hasty 

^Carlyle's "Oliver Cromwell," (People's edition), London: Chapman & Hall, 
V. 2, p. 288. Also, in the "Centenary edition," London: Chapman & Hall, v. 7, 
(1897), p. 367. The year of this letter is 1643. 

^Academy, March 28, 1885, v. 27, p. 224. 

^Academy, April 11, 1885. v. 27, p. 260. 



49 

in accepting a conclusion, simply on the basis of some 
textual detail. Nevertheless, in this particular instance, 
there is a significant, and perhaps conclusive, phase of the 
subject which is cited by Mr. Gardiner, as follows: — 
"Christmas Eve, too, in 1643 of all years, when the obser- 
vance of Christmas was for the first time forbidden in Lon- 
don, Christmas Day having in 1642 fallen on a Sunday."^ 
One of the distinctively "textual" studies which was con- 
nected with the investigation of the "Squire papers" was 
concerned with the Puritan names. In particular, it 
related to the Christian names of the rank and file of 
Cromwell's army, which have been commonly supposed 
to be Old Testament names, — and very grotesque ones at 
that. This impression, widespread as it is, does not stand 
the test of investigation; but it has been due very largely 
to the use of such names in historical novels, such as Scott's 
"Woodstock", and in some of the dramas of the Restoration 
period, as well as to some unfounded statements in Hume 
and other historians. It needs to be said also that the 
most uncouth of all these names, "Praise-God Barcbone," 
was an actual name, (though the best authorities agree 
that the names which have traditionally been associated 
with his sons were imaginary, — namely, "Christ-Came- 
Into-The-World-To-Save-Bare6one", and "If-Christ-Had- 
Not - Died - Then - Thou - Hadst - Been - Damned - Barebone ) . ^ 
And yet "Praise-God Barebone" was not a representative 
instance, but an exceptional instance. One of the most 
painstaking and thorough studies of this subject was made 
by Mr. Edward Peacock, an English antiquary, about ten 
years before the "Squire" discussion just referred to, — 
namely in the Academy in 1875. Mr. Peacock selected his 
names from various representative sources, in the Seven- 
teenth Century and in the Nineteenth Century, respectively, 
but usually from enrollment lists. He thus obtained a 

'Academy, March 28, 1885, v. 27, p, 224. 

-Article, "Barbon," or "Barebone," in "Dictionary of national biography," 
V. 3. (1885), p. 151-53, by A. B Grosart. 



50 

total of 3,207 names. Having done this, he sifted out 
from each of the two sets of Hsts the Old Testament names ; 
and, to the great surprise of most of those who had followed 
his studies, it was found that the percentage of Old Testa- 
ment names was not very much greater in the wars of the 
Commonwealth than in our own time. For instance, 
comparing roll for roll, he finds 76 Old Testament names 
in one of these Seventeenth Century lists. But he also 
finds as many as 55, in a Lincolnshire list of 1852.-^ 

This being the case, what is the percentage of Old Testa- 
ment names to be found in the lists included in the alleged 
Squire letters? They are found there, as Mr. Peacock 
shows us,^ in so overwhelming a percentage as to place it at 
once in strong contrast to such other lists of the Common- 
wealth period as have been preserved. This very fact 
invites suspicion. "It is, however," says Mr. Peacock, 
"quite reasonable to suppose that a forger who believed 
that Biblical names were very common in the Puritan 
armies, when manufacturing lists of names, should have 
used such names freely."^ 

One has only to ask this question, however: — "Who 
gave these Cromwellian leaders their Christian names?" 
They certainly did not name themselves. Had they done 
so, their names would doubtless have been emphatically 
of the Old Testament type, (as in fact were the names 
which they themselves gave to their sons). But, on the 
contrary, the names given to these Parliamentary fighters,- 
men who were then from forty to sixty years of age, — were 
given to them back in Queen Elizabeth's reign, when it 
was still the natural and obvious course to name a boy 
■ Henry, or Richard, or Walter, in most instances, rather than 
Zebediah, or Jonadab, or Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz. A 
crafty fabricator, who should aim to place his fabrications 
beyond suspicion, by the choice of Christian names, is 

lAcademy, July 24, 1875, v. 8, p. 92. 
^Academy, AprU 18, 1885. v. 27, p. 275. 
»Ibid. 



51 

quite likely not to have been crafty^ enough to avoid this 
kind of contingency. It is another case of 

"the engineer 
Hoist with his own petard."^ 

DIFFICULTIES OF EXACT NAKRATION. 

In those cases where the historian is obliged to draw an 
inference, there are plenty of chances that he will be in 
some way tripped up. One of the most subtle of these 
mishaps is due to the fact that the major premise itself 
stands for a pure assumption. Were it not for this, the 
inference drawn would be beyond challenge. For example, 
some historian of modern Europe might have framed such a 
syllogism as this : — Major premise: The French Revolution 
was a world-wide calamity. Minor premise: The tendencies 
in Hungary and Poland in 1850 are a reproduction of the 
spirit of the French Revolution. Conclusion: Therefore 
the tendencies in Hungary and Poland in 1850 presage a 
world-wide calamity. Far more common, however, is 
that type of logical miscarriage which grows out of a wrong 
conclusion from the premises, — in other words, a "non- 
sequitur." Mr. Crothers has so dehghtfully treated this 
subject, in his recent article, "How to know the fallacies,"^ 
that they need not be enumerated here. 

Above all things, discrimination is necessary. Whether 
delivered from the bench, or formulated by a historian, a 
decision ought to be based on logical inferences, if possible ; 
and yet it is undeniable that inferences are too often 
drawn from very slender data. A defect of some 

^A similar instance, of work whicn was clever, but not quite clever enough, is 
to be seen in connection with the fabricated "Cape-Fear Mercury," which was very 
skillfully exposed by A. S. Salley, Jr., and Worthington C. Ford, ("Dr. S. Millington 
Miller and the Mecklenburg Declaration"), American Historical Review, April, 
1906, V. 11, p. 548-58. 

^Below are given references, approximately complete, to this entire discussion, 
1885-87, begun in the pages of the Academy, and transferred to those of the English 
Historical Review, as soon as that began publication, in 1886. 

Academy, v. 27, p. 188, 206-7, 224-25, 243, 259-61, 275, 276, 295, 312-13, 331. 

English Historical Review, v. 1, p. 311-48, 517-21, 744-56; v. 2, p. 142-48, 342-43. 

^Atlantic Monthly, Nov., 1905, v. 96, p. 617-28. Reprinted in his volume, "The 
pardoner's wallet," p. 82-118. Boston: Houghton, MiflBin, & Co., 1905. 



62 

kind, either in one of the premises or in the other, or in the 
conclusion, has been repeatedly found to impair the validity 
of such logical reasoning. A writer having stated one of 
his premises will sometimes proceed to the next one by 
saying: "We may perhaps venture to assume", etc., the 
sad truth being that in many instances one ought not to 
"venture to assume". The main danger, however, seems 
to lie in drawing the conclusion; and the tendency to a 
"non sequitur" is quite too common. It is as if one should 
say : ' 'The sky is clear this morning. " ' 'Moreover, I see an 
automobile coming up the street." ' 'Therefore it will rain be- 
fore night." The writer would find it hopelessly difficult to 
explain why this conclusion follows, from these premises, but 
no more difficult than the writers of some historical studies. 
Partly in the same line of thought as this, is this other 
general principle, that one may possibly be too much under 
the influence of some proverb or aphorism, of wide accepta- 
tion, and thus run the risk of doing injustice alike to a 
writer and to a historic character. One such proverbial 
idea is expressed in the classical quotation, "Ex pede 
Herculem". While it is true that in a large number of 
instances an opportimity to view a part, gives one a correct 
idea of the whole, yet the instances which constitute an 
exception to this rule are so recurrent and so important, 
that every historian needs to be on his guard in this matter. 
The treatment of a historic character like Cromwell is a case 
in point. Few things are more striking, in the historical 
literature of the past twenty-five years, than the extent 
to which the later historians have refused to set him down 
as wholly base, or hypocritical, while fully recognizing 
those elements in his make-up and career which deserve 
such a characterization.^ 

'A case in point is the American statesman, Gouverneur Morris, concerning 
whom President Roosevelt, in his interesting life of Morris, has acutely remarked, 
(p. 361): — "There are, however, very few of oiir statesmen whose characters can 
be painted in simple, uniform colors." . . . "Nor is Morris one of these few. His 
lapce is alongside of men like Madison, Samuel Adams, and Patrick Henry, who 
did the nation great service at times, but each of whom, at some one or two critical 
junctures ranged himself with the forces of disorder. " 



68 

Another instance, (which is equally striking, partly 
because it belongs in a wholly different region, so far as 
the sympathies and prejudices of those who read history 
in a partisan way are concerned), is that of Mary, Queen 
of Scots. It is a fact of no little significance, that, the more 
recent the publication of a book on this subject, the more 
likely it is to be a non-partisan and judicial study of her 
career and qualities, doing full justice to the counts both 
for and against her. One of the latest of these studies, 
that of Mr. Andrew Lang, ("The mystery of Mary Stuart"), 
published in 1904, is noteworthy from the fact that the 
author has, in at least one instance, (where the genuine- 
ness of a letter is disputed), actually put himself in the 
place of the accused, and has tried to see what kind of a 
letter one would necessarily write under the given con- 
ditions. 

And yet, instructive as this instance of Mary, Queen of 
Scots is, in the way of illustrating non-partisan treatment, 
it is discouragingly instructive in the Ught which it sheds 
on the question whether, — to fall back on another familiar 
aphorism, — "Time does really bring all things to light." 
Mary Stuart has now been dead more than three hundred 
and twenty-five years, and yet are we in a position to say 
that we know the absolute truth in regard to the disputed 
points in her career? One might almost accuse her bio- 
grapher, Chalmers, of undue optimism in the use which 
he has made (in its EngHsh translation), of the Latin 
aphorism, "Veritas filia temporis."^ 

What has been said thus far naturally serves to emphasize 
the fact that extreme discrimination is necessary, on the 
part of the historian whose point of view is the judicial one. 
He is not permitted to assume, without verification, the 



*"Just who is responsible for the very questionable Latinity of this phrase, (an 
English translation of which is placed on the reverse of the title-page of vol. 1, i n 
the English edition of Chalmers, and on the title-page itself in the A.merican reprint), 
is not clear. It ia cited as a proverb from the Spanish, in King's Classical and foreign 
quotations, " p. 554. 



64 

impeccable character of any body of so-called evidence, no 
matter how prepossessing may be its antecedents. We 
have already seen that this remark applies to the question 
of the use of records and archives. It also applies to the 
question of first-hand or second-hand testimony, — whether 
in the field of biography or of history proper. 

One may not even conclude too hastily that when we 
have the testimony of a witness who was himself a partici- 
pant in the transaction, the exact truth is assured. But 
the application of this principle to history yields quite as 
interesting results as in the case of biography. As has been 
shown above, a historian who writes in another century 
from that of the historical character who is described, does 
so at a certain disadvantage ; and so does one who writes in 
another country and using a different language. Still 
further, even supposing him to be a contemporary of his 
hero, he may not have been brought into close enough re- 
lations with the events described. Imagine, for instance, 
two works, each of which is entitled "A history of the 
Fifteenth Massachusetts Regiment of Volunteers, in the 
War of the Rebellion", one of which is written by an officer 
who served in that regiment, and the other by a man who 
never went outside of New England during the entire 
four years of the war. Can any one hesitate for a moment 
as to which of the two is entitled to credence? And yet, 
the very sharpness of this contrast, in favor of the actual 
participant, and his facilities for presenting a narrative 
which should be accurate, may serve to blind one to the 
fact that even this position does not and cannot guarantee 
uttermost accuracy in every detail. This is a lesson which 
has been learned very gradually, since the close of the 
American Civil War, and especially since the United States 
Government has been putting into print the "Official 
records of the War of the Rebellion", reproducing the 
exact text of the despatches, reports, orders, and other 
official papers, on both sides. It was at first thought by 



66 

some writers, and very naturally, that here at last was an 
end of controversy, in view of these official statements; but 
historians like our associate, Mr. James F. Rhodes,^ who have 
been going over this period, (and even more, the military his- 
torians, like the late John C. Ropes), ^ have found it any- 
thing but a clear case, or a foregone conclusion. If the 
question should be, what went on in the "Seven Days' 
Battles" before Richmond, (June 25-July 1, 1862),3 the 
conscientious historical student is plunged at once into 
the examination of a mass of conflicting statements; and 
the problem is made all the more formidable by the evident 
absence of any attempt to deceive, on the part of any of 
the writers, — each one telling the story with utmost 
sincerity, as it appeared to him, but telling a story which 
disagrees with almost every other story. 

Still, — the reader is inclined to ask, — if we confine our 
attention to some one detail out of the entire mass, will 
not the participant then be able to give us an absolutely 
trustworthy account? 

It so happens than an incident of precisely this kind 
came under my observation several years ago, in conversa- 
tion with our associate, Mr. William B. Weeden; and it 
impressed me so strongly, that I asked Mr. Weeden, who had 
given me the narrative verbally, to write it out for me; and, 
complying with this request, he has given it to me as follows : 

Dear Mr. Foster. Providence, May 15th, 1896. 

The incident, of which we were speaking, occurred in this wise. 

At the battle of Gaines' Mills,* I was Chief of Artillery in the First 
Division of Porter's Fifth Corps. A part of my own Battery under Lieut. 



^Rhodes, James Ford. History of the United States, from the Compromise of 
1850. New York: Harper & Bros., v. 3-5, pub. 1895. 1899. 1904. 

^Ropes, John Codman. Story of the Civil War. New York: G. P. Putnam's 
Sons, 1894. 3 v. See discrepancies cited at p. 293 of v. 2. More than a dozen years 
before. Mr. Ropes had published "The army under Pope," New York: C. Scribner's 
Sons. 1881. 

'As an example of the "Official records" being cited on both sides of a puzzling 
question, see Rhodes's note on this campaign. ("History of the United States." v. 
4, p. 48.) 

*The battle of Gaines's Mills, (dtiring these same "Seven Days" before Rich- 
mond), was fought, June 27-28. 1862. 



66 

Buckley was posted with Gen. Martindale's Brigade at a crucial point 
of our line. The guns were well served and did considerable execution. 
I went down several times to look after them in a general way. The 
musketry firing from the enemy was heavy and the pressure of battle 
was very severe. Once the colors of a rebel regiment charging, were 
knocked over by a case shot from our guns. Then the firing from both 
artillery and infantry was so well concentrated, that the enemy could 
not recover his colors, but they were brought in by our infantry, after 
he was beaten back. 

The Fourth Michigan Regiment was on the right of these guns. This 
corps had been much associated with us, and we were all very friendly. 
Talking over the battle next day with some of the officers, they were 
very cordial in appreciating the handling of our guns. Then they made 
this astonishing statement. "When you came into the battery and 
sighted the guns yourself, the effect was tremendous". I never once 
aimed a gun in any action. If I had done so, it would have interfered 
with the excellent gunners, who served the pieces. These Michigan 
officers were probably within one hundred feet; certainly they were not 
two hundred feet away from the guns. 

The incident is a fair illustration of the constant tendency of wit- 
nesses, to idealize action and innocently to create acts, which they 
think they see. Truly yours, Wm. B. Weeden. 

It is almost startling to reflect how near this myth in 
embryo came to being embodied, as actual history, in some 
one of the printed narratives of the war, if Captain Weeden 
had not been alive to negative it. 

It is not strange that, with all the attention which has 
been paid to this phase of the subject, the suggestion 
should have arisen that, while there may be a condition of 
things in which the letter of the narrative is accurate, while 
it is wholly inaccurate in spirit, there may also be a condi- 
tion of things in which the reverse is the case. In other 
words, the letter of the narrative may be inaccurate, but 
the spirit of it accurate.' This claim has been made for 
various historical writers; and among them, for Thomas 
Carlyle. 

To illustrate the bearing of this suggestion, let us consider 
an imaginary case, in real life. We will suppose that a 

^The other side of the case is represented in Macaulay's supposition that there 
might perhaps be "a history in which every particular incident may be true," but 
which "may on the whole be false." Macaulay's "Critical, historical, and miscel- 
aneous essays," (Am. ed.), Boston: Houghton, MifHin, & Co., v. 1, p. 425. 



57 

messenger boy is sent from a drug-store on Boylston Street 
in Boston, with a bottle of medicine, to a house on Dana 
Street in Cambridge. The messenger actually does deliver 
the medicine, but it is first mislaid by the servant, and then, 
after repeated telephoning to the drug-store for the missing 
medicine, the servant remembers it, and hands it over. 
The necessary explanation is then made all around, and 
the unfortunate messenger boy is completely exonerated, 
but not until after, in his confusion, he had made, — quite 
unintentionally, — an extraordinary series of statements of 
things that were not so. Here is the messenger's statement : 

"I went to Copley Square, and when a Harvard Square car came along, 
I got on, and the clock said a quarter before eleven. There was a lady 
sat next alongside of me, and so I thought I would ask her about how 
to find the place. I will tell you what she looked like. She was tall, 
and she had on a blue dress, and she was holding a muff, and her name 
was Miss Williams, she said. She took and looked at the name on the 
parcel, and, said she, 'I can tell you just how to go there, because, don't 
you see, I live close by there myself.' So at Dana Street the conductor 
let me off, and there was the house all right, and when I rang the beU 
there was a man came to the door, and I handed over the parcel to him, 
and came along back." 

This is the messenger's statement. Now what are the 
facts? Nearly every separate item in the entire list is 
misstated; for, like some historians, he seemed to have an 
actual genius for inaccuracy. 

The car which he took was not a Harvard Square car 
but a Mount Auburn car. He took it, not at 10.45, but 
at 11.45. The lady next to him was dressed, not in blue, 
but in brown. She was not tall, but rather short. She 
did, however, carry a muff, as he stated. Her name also 
was Williams, as he stated, but not ''Miss", but "Mrs." 
It was Dana Street at which he left the car, but it was a 
maid who answered the door-bell, rather than a man. 

But what of it? The essential thing to be noted is, that 
the messenger actually did dehver the medicine at the 
right house, in proper season, as he said he did. These 
other details may have some very slight importance, but 



58 

they do not relate to matters in which the purchaser of the 
medicine felt the slightest interest. So long as he had the 
medicine, what did it matter to him whether the messenger 
had come over in a Harvard Square or a Mount Auburn car? 

Now this entirely imaginary instance finds a close 
parallel in a somewhat well known passage of French 
history. It is that section^ of Carlyle's extraordinary 
work on "The French Revolution" in which the royal 
flight is narrated. On the 21st of June, 1791, Louis XVI^ 
the Queen, and the entire royal family, made their 
escape from Paris. The whole distance which they trav- 
ersed was about one hundred and fifty miles,^ namely^ 
from Paris to Varennes, a small town in the East of France. 
Of this piece of description. Professor H. Morse Stephens 
says: "This narrative is so vivid that the very wheels of 
the yellow berline in which the royal family travelled may 
be almost heard upon the roads of France."^ Since the 
suggestion had often been made that this narrative was 
apparently incorrect in detail, it occurred to an accom- 
plished English historical scholar, Mr. Oscar Browning, 
to make as thorough an examination of this narrative as pos- 
sible. This he did, about twenty years ago, (in fact traversing 
a large portion of the route personally, in a tricycle, — namely, 
the portion from Chalons to Varennes,^ — apparently, in the 
autumn of 1885.) The result is embodied in his volume, 
"The flight to Varennes, and other historical essays."- 

His conclusions are thus summed up : The reader, he 
says, "will discover that almost every detail is inexact, 
some of them quite wrong and misleading. This is the 
danger of the picturesque school of historians. They will 
be picturesque at any price. "^ Carlyle places the distance 



'Namely, "Book IV, Varennes." 

^Browning, Oscar. "Flight (The) to Varennes, and other historical essays." 
London: Swan Souneuschein, 1892, p. 15. 



'"Counsel upon the reading of books " p. 91. 
*A distance of forty-nine miles. 
'"Browning's "Flight to Varennes," p. 1-76. 
'Browning's "Ibid.,"' p. 76. 



69 

at sixty-nine miles instead of one hundred and fifty. ^ He 
describes the streets by which they left Paris, giving a 
wholly incorrect route .^ He miscalculates the speed of 
their carriage.^ He mistranslates from the French/ as 
to the costume of one of the characters. 

The curious fact is that Mr. Browning, after having 
made this very skilful expose, remarks that Carlyle's nar- 
rative "in its broad outlines is consistent with the truth. "^ 
Possibly this is so, and yet if this principle were to be taken 
as of universal application, the result would be plainly mis- 
leading. In other words, there is one important difference 
between the case of the messenger boy and the case of the 
historian. The druggist who had sent the boy may be con- 
ceived of as placing too confident a reliance on the proverbial 
expressions, "Falsus in uno — falsus in omnibus," and the like. 
He may therefore, after detecting the messenger in saying 
that he took a Harvard Square car when he should have 
said a Mount Auburn car, continue to urge; "You have 
been false in one thing. You have therefore been false in 
all. I will not believe that you delivered the package." 
And in thus urging he would have been plainly in the 
wrong. But the essential thing to remember is that it is 
the business of the messenger to deliver the package, and 
he did it. It is the business of the historian to tell a 
straight story. Does he do it? 

Let us return once more to the conception of history as 
written from a judicial point of view, (as above indicated), 
and imagine a judge whose duty it is to listen to all kinds 
of evidence. So far as the judge himself is concerned, it is 
plainly his business to hear everything, but not necessarily 
to believe everything that he hears. The arguments 
brought forward by counsel with fluent tongues are spoken 
in the hearing of the jury, the spectators, and the publie 

^Browning's "Flight to Varennes," p. 15. 
^Ibid., p. 60-61. 
sibid., p. 16-17. 
*Ibid., p. 70. 
"Ibid., p. 25. 



60 

generally; and in them the ingenious orator will often find 
a soil quite favorable to the growth of the ideas which he 
fain would sow. Not so, however, with the '' stony ground' ' 
represented by the judge, in many instances. Let us sup- 
pose, for example, that the judge, before taking his seat on 
the bench, had been eminent as a corporation counsel, 
knowing corporation law down to his finger-ends. Not 
long after he has taken his seat on the bench, a case is 
heard before him, which is from beginning to end a question 
of corporation law; and it requires but little effort for the 
judge to see which side has the right of it. It so happens, 
however, that this is the side which has the weaker counsel ; 
and the judge consequently is in a position where his mental 
comments, from beginning to end, in regard to that side 
of the suit which in reality has the stronger case, are such 
as these : ' ' ^\^lat absurdity ! " " The worst I ever heard ! ' ' 
"To expect any one to listen to that!" "A child only ten 
years old would know better!" And yet, this judge, 
because he has a judicial mind, is not swept off his feet, 
and made to believe the opposite of the truth, by the mere 
accident of the best counsel being on the wrong side. But, 
on the other hand, the general public is quite liable to be 
swept off its feet, in this way. The American public, in 
particular, dearly loves a brilliant debater, and, even if 
convinced, down deep in its heart, of the truth of the 
opposite side, is not above yielding itself up, mind and soul, 
to the "taking" argument. 

In this particular, as in so many others indicated above, 
it is the historian's duty to exercise discrimination, and a 
critical judgment. It will sometimes be the case, in 
going through a considerable mass of publications deal- 
ing with a given subject, that he will say, mentally: — "Yes. 
I see what the data are, which you are dealing with, but I 
do not draw the same conclusions from them that you do." 
It is here that a broad and generous equipment is of special 
service to a historian; for, if he should not approach the 



61 

subject with the same signal advantage that the judge had, 
who comes to the hearing of a corporation case after hav- 
ing made corporation law his specialty when a practising 
attorney, he will sorely need the unerring insight and the 
firm grip on underlying principles which will compensate 
for the absence of any previous experience. 

UNFAVORABLE ASPECTS OF THE " SCIENTIFIC SIDE." 

Like the literary side, the scientific side also has "the 
defects of its qualities". A very fundamental one is con- 
cerned with the very phraseology which is used. It is 
claimed, for instance, that there can be no "science of 
history", properly so called, because there can be no abso- 
lute prediction. This is forcibly stated by Gold win Smith 
in one of his recent addresses, as follows: 

"The crown of science is prediction. Were history a science, it would 
enable us to predict events. It is needless to say that the forecast of 
even the most sagacious of public men is often totally at fault with 
regard to the immediate future. On the brink of the great Revolutionary 
wars Pitt looked forward with confidence to a long continuance of peace. 
Palmerston, if he was rightly reported, deemed the cause of German 
unification hopeless at the moment when Bismarck was coming on the 
scene and unification was at hand." ^ 

The fundamental reason, of course, for this limitation, 
is the human factor, connected as it is, with the problem of 
free will. This is by no means a new subject. In fact, the 
very writer who has just been quoted, — Goldwin Smith, — 
was lecturing on this problem at Oxford more than 
forty years ago.^ In this problem, however, there are two 
somewhat distinct phases. The first one is connected with 
the familiar question of "necessitarianism" according to 
which man is conceived of as "an automaton". On this, 
in particular, Goldwin Smith has expressed himself in a 
very suggestive way, as follows : 

^American Historical Review, v. 10, p. 514. 

""Lectures on the study of history, dehvered in Oxford, 1859-61." New York: 
Harper & Bros., 1875. Another early di.scussion of the subject by Goldwin Smith 
is his lecture on "The study of history," delivered at Cornell University, in 1869. 
printed in the Atlantic Monthly. Jan. 1870, v. 25, p. 44-56. 



62 

"In habitual and commonplace actions we are not conscious of the 
volition unless our attention is specially called to it." "But always," 
he adds, there are "two elements" present, — the "volition," on the one 
hand, and "the antecedents or motive," on the other hand; "and upon 
the presence of the volition depend our retrospective judgments on our 
own actions and our judgments on the actions of our neighbors." * * * 
"Huxley, biased by physical science," (says Mr. Smith), "took at one 
time the extreme necessarian view. But if I mistake not, he had latterly 
ceased to feel so sure that man was an automaton which had automati- 
cally fancied itself a free agent but had automatically come back to 
the belief that it was an automaton."' 

The other phase of the subject is connected with the fact 
that no room is left for individuaUty. Most teachers find it 
an impressive fact that, with all the effort to plan our 
systems of education on a general scale, there are continu- 
ally found individual instances for whose peculiar needs no 
direct provision has been made. The problem is a perplex- 
ing one, for it is not always possible to command the re- 
sources for an individual treatment of the individual child. 
If not, the child, by some form of repression, is smoothed 
down, so to speak, (or rather, crowded down), to the 
general level. Nor is this experience confined to children. 
More and more, as our present-day tendencies to consolida- 
tion and uniformity develop, the individual everywhere 
feels the pressure of what the poet has called "the world's 
rough hand." 

It need hardly be added that in this respect the usage of 
society is closely in accordance with that which Tennyson, 
in "In Memoriam", has attributed to Nature herself: 

"So careful of the type she seems, 
So careless of the single life,''^ 

An even more subtile application of this principle lies 
in the interpretation of motive. "Judge not, that ye be not 
judged", is still sound doctrine, as it was? twenty centuries 
ago; and yet judges on the bench, and judicial historians 
everywhere, as well, are constantly obliged to pass judg- 



'American Historical Review, v. 10, p. 512. 
^Section 55. 



63 

ment, as to the motives which probably led to the actions 
in question. Since this is inevitable, perhaps the most 
that can be hoped for is that they shall invariably recognize 
that "the exceptions," as well as "the rule," are sometimes 
to be reckoned with. There are few men who have lived 
in this world for many years with a fairly observing habit 
of mind who have not been forced to take note, time after 
time, that it is the unexpected that has happened. Even 
from the point of view of simple mathematics, this is by no 
means incomprehensible. Let us say of some occurrence, 
as, for instance, the passing of a St. Bernard dog, in the 
crowded throng which surges past the corner of Broadway 
and Canal Street, in New York, that the probability, or 
chance, is only as one in ten. Very well then. Even in 
that case, some dog must be this one in ten. Or suppose 
it is only one man in twenty who stands six feet in height. 
Even then some one must be that twentieth man. It is no 
more strange that you should be the one than that some 
one else should be. 

The influence of this same indisposition to conceive of 
the "exceptional instance" is felt also in ethical fields. 
Given, a historical character to be studied and analyzed, 
whose associates and whole environment were obviously 
characterized by low moral standards. In that case it is 
only by a distinct effort of mind, that we are prevented 
from concluding, off hand, that the person in question was 
swayed by the same low motives. Nevertheless, this 
kind of "snap judgment" cannot be regarded as either 
just or sane. Let us apply the principle to our case. The 
future student of social conditions in the years 1900 to 
1906, in this country, will perhaps be impressed by nothing 
more strongly than this, that in these years "graft" was 
wide-spread, and pervasive. Let us suppose, then, that 
the student, in unearthing various papers, comes upon the 
existence of you or of me, and sets us down as tarred with 
the "graft" taint, because of our living in this age. Would 



64 

anyone enjoy this prospect? Indeed, one does not always 
have to wait for the "snap judgment" of posterity in 
such a matter as this, for it is not unheard of to find the 
"contemporary judgment", expressed somewhat as follows: 
"Well, every man has his price." In this way, the matter 
may perhaps best be brought home to us, so as to lead us 
to appreciate the rights of the minority, (the "twentieth 
man", so to speak), to a square deal, or, in other words, to 
a fair judgment, on an independent basis. 

Great is the wisdom of "Poor Richard," and it has great 
merits, as summing up the condensed thought of the 
majority of men. And yet this "proverbial" wisdom of 
the centuries may sometimes be a tyrannous judgment. 
With the fable of the fox and the "sour grapes" ringing 
in his ears, not only has an individual sometimes been 
compelled to take his appointed course in the face of almost 
certain misconstruction, but nations also have been com- 
pelled to do the same. A historian who has occasion to 
record the struggles of small nations with great ones will 
do well to look carefully into this phenomenon. 

There is another bearing of the scientific view of history 
which demands our attention, — namely, the fragmentary 
and unsatisfactory nature of a large portion of the "mater- 
ials of history". Mr. Firth for instance, who has already 
been quoted above, remarks: "Often the really conclusive 
document is missing; we know that something happened, 
but the piece of evidence which would explain why it 
happened is non-existent, and the precise significance of 
the fact becomes a matter for inference or conjecture. 
Sometimes a whole series of documents dealing with a 
particular episode has perished by accident or design, and 
shreds or patches of evidence must be collected from diff- 
ferent sources to supply its absence."^ 

Again, it seems probable that an extreme view of the 
scientific treatment of history may tend to defeat its own 



'Firth's "A plea for the historical teachins of history." p. 10-11. 



66 

purpose. In other words, while the primary purpose of 
science is practical,— the adaptation of means to ends,— 
the treatment may be so conducted as to lead to no end. 
Here, for instance, is the uncompromising statement of 
the purpose of the scientific school of history, as found in 
the pages of one of its latest advocates,— Professor Bury, of 
the University of Cambridge :— 

"The gathering of materials bearing upon minute local events, the 
coUation of MSS. and the registry of their small variations, the patient 
drudgery in archives of states and municipalities, all the microscopic 
research that is carried on by armies of toiling students— it may seem 
like the bearing of mortar and brick to the site of a building which has 
hardly been begun, of whose plan the labourers know little. This work, 
the hewing of wood and the drawing of water, has to be done in faith— 
in the faith that a complete assemblage of the smallest facts of human 
history wiU teU in the end. The labour is performed for posterity— 
for remote posterity; and when, with intelligible scepticism, someone 
asks the use of the accmnulation of statistics, the publication of trivial 
records, the labour expended on minute criticism, the true answer is: 
'That is not so much our business as the business of future generations. 
We are heaping up material and arranging it, according to the best 
methods we know; if we draw what conclusions we can for the satis- 
faction of our own generation, we can never forget that our work is to 
be used by future ages. It is intended for those who follow us rather 
than for ourselves, and much less for our grand-children than for gener- 
ations very remote' "* 

While there is something very noble in all this work of 
self-abnegation, yet it must be admitted that it is sadly 
destitute of the hope of an assured fruition. As Mr. 
Trevelyan has forcibly put it, in his trenchant comment 
on Mr. Bury's address: "The readers of books will pass 
by, ignorant of the hidden treasure, till, after long cen- 
turies of toilsome and useless accumulation, the unwieldy 
and neglected mass at length perishes, like the unopened 
books of the Sibyl. "2 

It is significant that all of the various dissentients 
from the ultra-scientific view of Mr. Bury, (including 

^Bury's "Inaugural lecture," 1903, p. 31-32. 

"•The latest view of history." by George Macaulay Trevelyan, in Independent 
Review. London, reprinted in Living Age, v. 240, p. 197. 



66 

Butcher,^ Trevelyan, Falkiner,^ Firth,^ and others), ascribe 
the difficulty and the danger above referred to, to the delib- 
erate elimination of style from the narrative. And they 
consequently regard the restoration of style, — or, at least, of 
life, of vitality, of something intimately concerned with 
the passion and movement of human life, — as being the 
most promising way out of the difficulty. 

Frederic Harrison also puts the case very lucidly: — 

"There is more to be said for literary form in historical composition 
than the present generation is wont to allow. Abstracts of complicated 
documents with abundant archaeological setting do not need any liter- 
ary form, nor can they endure such setting any more than grammars, 
dictionaries, or catalogues of microscopic entozoa. But all compila- 
tions of original research not fused into the form of art, remain merely 
the text-books of the special student and are closed to the general 
public. They have a purely esoteric value for the few, however pro- 
found be their learning, however brilliant the discoveries they set forth. 
Perhaps no historian in this century has exercised a more creative force 
over modern research than Savigny; but his great historical work is a 
closed book to the general public as much as is his purely legal work. 
Now, it is the public which history must reach, modify, and instruct, 
if it is to rise to the level of humane science and be more than 
pedantic antiquarianism. And nothing can reach the public as history, 
unless it be organic and proportioned in structure, impressive by its 
epical form, and instinct with the magic of life. 

The colossal monuments compiled by Muratori, Pertz, and Migne 
are invaluable to the scholar, and so are Catalogues of the Fixed Stars to 
the astronomer, or the Nautical Almanac to the seaman. But to any 
but professed students of special subjects, the only real kind of history 
is a reduced miniature of the vast area of actual events, in such just 
proportion as to leave on the mind a true and memorable picture. A 
real history (and of a real history, the Decline and Fall is, at least in 
literary conception and plan, the ideal type) must be so artfully balanced 
in its proportion that a true impression of the crucial events and dom- 
i nant personalities is forced into the reader's brain. It has to be what 

''Butcher, Samuel Henry. Harvard lectures on Greek subjects, London: 1904, 
p. 251-52. "We cannot lightly accept the suggestion," says Mr. Butcher, "that 
history should emancipate herself from literature." Page 251. 

^Falkiner, C. Litton. Literature and history. Monthly Review, London 
reprinted in Living Age, June 4, 1904, v. 241, p. 621-28. "If the whole workshop of 
historical research is not to become a vast lumber-room, it is time that some at least 
among the leaders of English historical learning should recognize the saving grace of 
style as the great antiseptic not only of literature but of history." (Page 627.) 

^Among other articles, should be cited a very trenchant article in the New York 
Evening Post, Dec. 19, 1903. 

See also Mr. Firth's "Plea for the historical teaching of history," above cited. 



67 

a Bcientific globe or map is to our earth— a true copy reduced to accurate 
proportion and of dimensions measurable by the ordinary eye. Truth 
of proportion is far more essential than any accuracy of detail. Falsity 
of proportion is a blunder far more misleading than any meagreness of 
local definition. To confuse the observer w-ith a wilderness of details, 
and still more to mislead him by falsifying the relative nature of men 
and of things— this is to make a caricature, not a picture, a fancy sketch 
not a chart. It will be as fatal to the reader as Ptolemaic maps were to 
the early navigators. A history wherein the pursuit of trivial facts is 
carried to confusion, and where the sense of faithful proportion is 
ruined by antiquarian curiosity, is little more than a comic photograph 
as taken in a distorted lens. The details may be accurate, curious, 
and inexhaustible; but the general effect is that of preposterous in- 
version. We learn nothing by the process. We are wearied and 
puzzled."^ 

Under the head of the scientific historian, as well as the 
literary historian, we may learn from a specific instance. 
The late Edward A. Freeman was a notable example of the 
virtues, and the limitations as well, of this view of the 
matter. Mr. Freeman was a scholar of exceptional erudi- 
tion and of minute and precise knowledge in his own fields. 
Although his work was based more largely on printed 
materials than on unpubhshed documents, his industry 
was extraordinary, and his research untiring. His remark- 
able equipment, however, did not save him from serious 
error, nor from well-founded charges of inaccuracy.^ 
Nor can it be said that his mental equipment was an ideal 
one for a historian. Besides his tendency to iteration, 
already referred to in these pages,^ he had an imperfect sense 
of historical perspective.'' Still more serious was the very 
evident prejudice which repeatedly disfigures his pages,— 
a defect which is even more marked in a "scientific his- 
torian" than in a "fiterary historian." In controversial 
writing, he invariably appears at his worst, and sometimes 

»Harrison'3 "Tennyson, Ruskin, and Mill, " etc., p. 222-23. 

»As a typical instance, see the exhaustive article by J. H. Round, on "Mr. Free- 
man and the battle of Hastings," in the Enghsh Historical Review. April. 1894, 
V. 9. p. 209-60. Compare also Paul's "Froude," p. 171-84. 

sPages 24-25. 

<" Freeman," says Frederic Harrison, "was an indefatigable inquirer into early 
records, but he muddled away his sense of proportion. " ("The meaning of history,' « 
p. 135.) 



68 

seems to have parted company with all sense of candor or 
fairness, as when making Mr. Froude a target for every 
variety of attack.^ By the irony of fate, this very excess 
of violence on Mr. Freeman's part has in the last few 
months been turned by more than one reviewer to Mr. 
Fronde's credit. While Mr. Froude by himself offers 
much that is vulnerable to the critic, a comparison^ of 
Froude with Freeman is often greatly to the advantage of 
the former. In spite of all his limitations, Mr. Freeman 
has rendered enormous service, not only by his historical 
narratives, but by his discussion of underlying historical 
principles; and his volume on "The methods of historical 
study" cannot be safely neglected by any one who takes 
up the study of history.^ 

THE ESSENTIALS SUMMARIZED. 

Briefly summing up the principles of historical narration, 
the ideal historian, it will be seen, must unite the some- 
what varied and opposite qualities above indicated. He 
must be at once accustomed to use his imagination, follow- 
ing it, however, by rigid verification, and also accustomed 
to sift all facts from a judicial point of view. He must see 
that his narrative possesses proportion and historical 
perspective, while, at the same time, he aims at historic 
detachment. 

THE QUESTION OF "MATERIALS FOR HISTORY." 

In a rapid summary of those points which belong to the 
ideal conception of history, it is plain that the judicial 

^"Mr. Freeman," says Andrew Lang, "actually objects to the copious use 
made of the new materials" [by Mr. Froude] "as 'often utterly wearisome!' He 
even speaks as if the dates of despatches were unimportant." (Cornhill Magazine, 
Feb., 1906, v. 92, p. 261-62.) For a reference to the discussion, (disastrous to Mr. 
Freeman), in 1879, see Paul's "Froude," p. 182-84. 

^See p. 33 of this paper. 

^Although published eight years ago, the'most judicial of the attempts at suramins 
up the work of these two great men, Froude and Freeman, is that of Mr. Frederic 
Harrison. He published in the Nineteenth Century, Sept., 1898, his careful study 
of "The historical method of J. A. Froude, (v. 44, p. 372-85); and in the same journal, 
Nov., 1898, "The historical method of Professor Freeman," (v. 44, p. 791-806). 
These papers are reprinted at p. 221-67 of his volume, "Tennyson, Ruskin, Mill 
and other literary estimates," (1900). 



69 

point of view is "the point of view" in history, pre- 
eminently. 

And yet when we are confronted with the immense mass 
of material under any given historical topic, and recognize 
how small a percentage of the whole has any right to bear 
the epithet "judicial," we may be for the moment puzzled. 
Only for a moment, however, because we can, (still follow- 
ing the analogy of the court of law), describe all of this 
less acceptable portion as "materials for history." In 
just this same way, all the papers which are introduced in 
connection with the trial of a case in court are materials 
for the final decision, including the documents of various 
kinds, the correspondence, the stenographic report of the 
testimony, and the pleas made by the counsel. In the 
domain of history, as has been noticed, we have not only 
the documents and correspondence, but also the "annals," 
painfully compiled by rude and unpractised hands, and 
also the various "pleas," (more or less consciously partisan) 
known as "memoirs," "vindications," "apologies," etc. 
These occupy the field until the coming of some historical 
work which shall sum up the substance of them all, pre- 
senting in an adequate manner what they expressed only 
inadequately. 

As in all questions of "names and things, " discrimination 
in this matter is usually diflScult and sometimes dangerous. 
We shall be content, in ordinary conversation, at least, to 
adopt the conventional designation, "historian", as apply- 
ing to the writers of all alike, rather than assume a ped- 
antic attitude, — just as one does not quarrel with the census 
enumerator who, with unconscious humor, perhaps, would 
affix the same label, "pianist", alike to Paderewski, and 
to some half-fledged pounder of the keys who rents an 
office for instructing pupils. 

Nor must we forget that some of these "memoirs" which 
fall short most flagrantly, of the judicial standard, — and 
indeed because of thus falling short of it, — have a value of 



70 



their own as "human documents." So unrestrained, so 
genuine, so natural, so lifelike, is their picture of the event 
or period, that one's heart almost goes out to them in read- 
ing them. 

Our own literature, fortunately, is full of these biogra- 
phies, and autobiographical memoirs, whose very charm 
is in their subjective character, and their freedom from 
self -consciousness . 

Othello's last injunction to his two friends ran thus: — 

"When you shall these unlucky deeds relate, 
Speak of me as I am; nothing extenuate, 
Nor set down aught in malice.'" 

And when, says Agnes Repplier, he thus implored them, 
"he offered the best and most comprehensive advice which 
the great race of biographers and memoir writers have ever 
listened to and discarded." She adds: "For half truths", 
"those broken utterances which come bubbling up the well 
from the great unloved goddess whom we all unite in hold- 
ing below the water, there are no such mediums as the 
memoir and the biography."^ 

It is evident that the impulse to find enjoyment as well 
as information in the mass of historical literature which 
the world has seen gradually accumulating, is a deep-seated 
one. But so also is the impulse to find in it instruction, — 
wisdom, guidance, a lesson for the future. That there is 
risk, not to say peril, in such a tendency as this, no one who 
has made himself familiar with the scientific point of view 
in history can for a moment doubt. For example, one feels 
like asking: "If history "teaches", what does it teach, — 
and how?" "How can one be assured of the correctness 
of the supposed lessons, or inferences?" Assuredly, the 
pages of history are full of erroneous inferences. Doubt- 
less also there have been many instances of "disputed" 
inferences. To this day, there are two different schools 



'Shakespeare's "Othello," Act. 5, scene 2, lines 414-16. 
^''Counsel upon the reading of books," p. 97-98. 



71 

of interpretation, so far as the "lessons" of the French 
Revolution are concerned; and each of the opposite schools 
is quite sure that the other is alarmingly wrong. 

Perhaps a question which goes to the root of the matter 
is this; — "Should the lesson be an explicit one, or merely 
implicit?" Should it be driven in, — almost "rubbed in", 
one might say, — or should it be left there to be discovered 
by any reader who is in possession of his reasoning powers? 

The sober second thought will point to the latter.^ 

ALTERNATIONS OF OPINION AS TO THE POINT OF VIEW. 

No one who examines critically the body of historical 
literature from century to century, — and from decade to 
decade, — can fail to be impressed by the extent to which 
it has reflected the tendencies of the time. A writer who 
should have published his history in the early part of the 
Nineteenth Century could hardly fail to be influenced by 
the theories of natural rights, which were universally 
discussed at that period. Likewise, one who wrote during 
the later years of that century would necessarily be influ- 
enced, and most profoundly, by the doctrine of evolution. 

But there are also tendencies to be observed, — or rather 
violent oscillations from one extreme to the other, — so far 

*An analogous question is that which relates to "ethical values in history." One 
view, (namely, that the historian should take account of these data), is held by 
Mr. Goldwin Smith and Lord Acton. 

"The treatment of history," by Goldwin Smith, (President's address to the 
American Historical Association, Dec. 28. 1904), American Historical Review, April, 
1905, V. 10, p. 511-20. 

"A lecture on the study of history," (inaugural lecture at the University of 
Cambridge, June 11, 1895), by Lord Acton, London: Macmillan & Co., 1895, p 
63-73. 

On the contrary, Mr. Lea and the late Bishop Creighton hold that history should 
be little more than a photograph of what took place, not considering whether it ought 
to have taken place. 

"Ethical values in history," by Henry Charles Lea, (President's address to the 
American Historical Association, Dee. 29, 1903), American Historical Review, 
Jan., 1904, v. 9, p. 233-46. A somewhat kindred subject is treated in the 
•'President's address in 1905, by John B. McMaster, on "Old standards of public 
morals," American Historical Review, April, 1906, v. 11, p. 515-28. 

"Historical ethics," by the Rt. Rev. Mandell Creighton, late Bishop of Lon- 
don, printed posthumously, (under the direction of his widow), in the Quarterly 
Review, July, 1905, v. 203, p. 32-46. (Reprinted in the Living Age, Aug. 26, 1905, 
V. 246, p. 516-24; and in the Churchman. Sept. 9, 1905. v. 92. p. 384-86). 



72 

as regards the holding of one or another of the two views 
of history, considered above. At one time, the pendulum 
swings towards the literary ^dew of the subject. At another 
time, it swings far in the other direction, towards the 
scientific view. One needs scarcely to raise the question 
as to which of the two \'iews is now in the ascendant. In 
fact, there has seldom been a time when the pressure has 
been so emphatically in favor of the scientific view. So 
completely is this tendency in control, that more than one 
scholar has raised his voice in lamentation at the passing 
of the literary standard and literary point of view,^ ap- 
parently fearful that these may be crowded off the scene 
altogether. That there has been, says a recent writer, 
"a decline in historical writing, as judged by the canons of 
great literature, some might possibly deny, but the most 
of us would readily concede. " * * * With the great works 
of history, those "produced during the last quarter-century, 
while almost legion in number, are in but very few cases 
even comparable as pieces of literary art. They may be 
and without doubt frequently are, better histories, but 
they are certainly not so good literature".^ 

It is quite likely that the true state of the case does not 
call for extreme concern or anxiety. Not to speak of the 
fact that the swinging of the pendulum can almost always 
be relied on to correct a tendency which runs to an extreme, 
it is to be remembered that there was really very much 
from which an extreme reaction was needed, in the vogue 
which has been enjoyed, in the past, by varieties of histor- 
ical writings which were superficial in treatment, partisan 
in tone, and prejudiced in motive. It must also be remem- 
bered that the present and recent emphasis on the scien- 
tific point of view was really nothing more than natural, 
in view of the profound influence of the doctrine of evolu- 



'It is not always from this precise point of view that the subject is considered. 
There is a very thoughtful article on "History and materialism," by Alfred H. 
Lloyd, in the American Historic^. Review, July, 1905, v. 10, p. 727-50. 

2F. A. Ogg, in the Dial. April 1, 1902. v. 32, p. 233. 



73 

tion^ on all fields of Nineteenth Century thought,^ Still 
further, it should be borne in mind that we are just now in 
possession of great masses of hitherto unused historical 
materials, in the record offices and archives of almost every 
civilized nation, calling for the application of scientific 
methods to reduce it to order and system. Until more of 
an impression has been made upon this undigested mass 
than has as yet been made, we are scarcely likely to see the 
domination of the scientific view very materially diminished. 
There is one final reflection which claims our attention. 
There are duties in regard to historical narratives which 
concern the reader of history, as well as the writer of 
history. Let us return for a moment to the analogy of 
the court of justice, above referred to. Of those who deal 
with the evidence brought into court, we have already 
named the counsel. In accordance with what is expected 
of him, he presents his case, in the style of an advocate, 
and an extremist. The second to be noticed is the judge, 
who tries the case, and seriously, carefully, logically, 
arrives at his conclusion. But, lastly, there is the jury. 
We sometimes speak of "the verdicts of history"; but 
verdicts are rendered, not by the judge, but by the jury. 

*The doctrine of evolution indeed has had, upon this whole subject of historical 
interpretation, an influence not even yet fully comprehended in this country. In 
Germany, the revolution which has been going on during the last quarter-century, 
as to historical method, has represented a conflict between the positions taken by 
Ranke and those taken by Lamprecht. "The new history," says a writer in the 
American Historical Review, — "and here lies its really fundamental feature — holds 
to the principle of describing the human past from the point of view of rational 
evolution." He adds that it asks not "Wie ist es eigentlich gewesen?" (as Ranke 
did), but rather "Wie ist es eigentlich geworden?" (Article by Earle W. Dow, 
"Features of the new history," in American Historical Review, April, 1S98, v. 3, 
p. 448.) A very enlightening view of Lamprecht's relation to recent historical 
discussion in Germany is to be had from W. E. Dodd's article, "Karl Lamprecht 
and Kulturgeschichte, " in Popular Science Monthly, Sept.. 1903, v. 63. p. 418-24. 
See also the reviews of Lamprecht's "Deutsche Geschichte, " by James Tait, in the 
English Historical Review, July, 1892, v. 7, p. 547-50, and Oct., 1893, v. 8, p. 748-50 
Also the review of his "What is history?", (by "A. G."), in the English Historical 
Review, July, 1905, v. 20, p. 604. 

2" To trace causes and effects" says Mr. William R. Thayer, "had long been 
their purpose," [i. e.. that of the historians]; "now they saw that the principle of 
growth or development, was itself the very rudder of causation." ("Proceedings" 
of the Massachusetts Historical Society, May 11, 1905, at p. 280 of v. 19, of the 2d 
series.) 



74 

If the jury is not enlightened, and is perverse or prejudiced, 
the case receives a serious setback, — at least temporarily. 
If now we apply the analogy to the field of historical 
vvTiting, we may assume that the counsel is represented by 
the average historical writer, usually prejudiced and im- 
critical. The judge is represented by the exceptional or 
judicial historian, sound in judgment, sane in tone, and 
fully able to sum up the case in a comprehensive manner. 
But, in the last place, the jury is represented by the great 
public, in all civilized countries, among whom some- 
thing analogous to "public sentiment" makes itself mani- 
fest, and is modified, more or less profoundly, from decade 
to decade. Since, therefore, it is the business of some to 
write history, soberly, it likewise falls to the lot of others 
to read history, sanely.^ 



'One of the latest additions to the literature of historical method is the 2d volume 
of the proceedings of the "Congress of arts and science — Universal Exposition, St. 
Louis, 1904," edited by Howard J. Rogers, Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, & Co., 1906. 
At p. 1-152 of this volume, under the sub-heading, " Historical science, " are valuable 
papers by Woodrow Wilson, William M. Sloane, James H. Robinson, Karl Lamprecht, 
and John B. Bury, 

Throughout the foot-notes to the foregoing paper, the aim has been to cite the 
references in a somewhat detailed form, as an aid to the bibliographical study of the 
subject. The writer has received much valuable assistance from Miss Mabel E. 
Emerson, of the Reference Department of the Providence Public Library, in con- 
nection with the bibhographical citations. As already stated above, Mr. J. I. 
Wyer, Jr.'s "Bibliography," at p. 559-612 of v. 1 of the "Annual report" of the Ameri- 
can Historical Association, for 1899. is invaluable, for the material published up to 
that year. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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